The Finnish electricity system was stable on Friday morning and demand was somewhat lower than expected, power grid operator Fingrid said.

Fingrid had on Thursday urged Finns to save electricity during morning and evening peak hours as Finnish day-ahead prices hit a record high 890.54 euros ($972.91) per megawatt hour at a time of unusually cold weather.

"The power system is stable and sufficiency of electricity is at a good level for now," the operator said in a statement, adding however that the cold temperatures and high demand continued to make the system sensitive to outages.

Consumption hit a peak around noon local time on Thursday of 14,804 megawatt, while demand on Friday morning was likely to be around 800 MW lower than forecast, Fingrid added.

Finland is experiencing an exceptionally cold start to the year with temperatures ranging from -15 Celsius (5 Fahrenheit) in the south to below -40 Celsius in Lapland, according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute. ($1 = 0.9153 euros) (Reporting by Essi Lehto, editing by Terje Solsvik)