Fingrid FinFlex TSO-DSO Congestion Market (web)

Fingrid’s own description of FinFlex, a joint TSO-DSO congestion management marketplace launched with Helen Electricity Network — Finland’s live operational answer to the coordination problem TSO-DSO Coordination — The Central Design Problem documents for Sweden.

The Fingrid page carries no publication date; published is the date it was first fetched (22 Sep 2026). On 5 Oct 2026 the Fingrid text was unchanged (still “until December 2027”), and two NODESmarket items were added: the FinFlex market page (undated) and a NODESmarket LinkedIn post of 13 Jul 2026 with the first published volume and price figures.

Key findings

FinFlex is a joint congestion-management marketplace for the transmission and distribution network — both system operators procure flexibility capacity and flexibility energy from the same NODES-operated order book, from flexibility service providers anywhere in Finland (excluding Åland). Fingrid uses it to manage bottlenecks in the national 400 kV network during normal operation, faults, and disturbances — under Fingrid’s Congestion Management Policy, marketplace offers serve as a primary congestion-management method alongside (not instead of) bilateral agreements; Helen uses the same marketplace for distribution-network congestion.

In the EU coordination-model taxonomy the wiki already uses (TSO-DSO Coordination — The Central Design Problem › EU taxonomy: four market coordination models), FinFlex sits toward the Common market end — a shared order book across TSO and DSO, structurally closer to the Netherlands’ GOPACS than to Sweden’s E.ON SWITCH sequential model.

First market results (NODESmarket, July 2026)

NODESmarket, the market operator, posted the first published results on LinkedIn on 13 Jul 2026, with Fingrid, Helen Sähköverkko and the flexibility service providers named as partners:

The post gives no period, no split between Fingrid and Helen and no number of trades; read as cumulative since the market opened on 30 April 2025, which is an assumption. The availability price is stated in EUR/MWh in the post, as quoted here. These are marketing-channel figures from the operator, not Fingrid’s own reporting, and they come from a post whose linked market-data portal was not read. NODESmarket also lists a separate “FinFlex first year report 2025-2026” behind a contact form on its publications page; it has not been read.

The NODESmarket market page adds design details the Fingrid page does not give:

• Products and needs. LongFlex and ShortFlex products; the grid needs served are demand turn-down and generation turn-up; minimum bid 0.1 MW, which may be delivered by aggregated assets.
• Sequencing of ShortFlex. The DSO buys in an auction with gate closure at D-1 10:00, before day-ahead gate closure; the TSO buys in continuous trading starting D-1 15:00, until one hour before delivery. TSO and DSO trade the same energy bids.
• Use. Fingrid for 400 kV congestion; Helen for 110 kV bottlenecks in the Helsinki area.
• Participation. Any flexible consumption, generation or storage resource located in Finland; an agreement with the resource’s balance responsible party and retailer is required.

Both operators therefore buy from the same bids, with the DSO’s auction first and the TSO’s continuous trading afterwards.

Relevance to existing wiki topics

• TSO-DSO Coordination — The Central Design Problem — a second live European “Common market” example alongside GOPACS, and specifically a Nordic one that Sweden’s own coordination-model choices can be benchmarked against
• Electric Grid Structure — evidence that a market-based coordination mechanism can address the TSO-DSO subtransmission problem without consolidating grid ownership — directly relevant to the Dir. 2026:83 question of whether Svk should take over 130 kV regionnät lines
• NODES — another national deployment of the NODES platform, alongside sthlmflex, Effekthandel Väst, NorFlex/Euroflex

Data gaps

• FinFlex volumes and prices by period and by buyer (Fingrid versus Helen), and how often each product was used — only cumulative operator-reported totals are public (above); the gated NODESmarket first-year report or the portal market-data page would give the breakdown. The agenda of Finland Flexibility Day (1 Oct 2026) lists a 13:20-13:40 slot titled “Changes to FinFlex TSO-DSO Congestion Management pilot” and no public material describes the changes