In 2020 Elering ensured the security of supply of electricity to clients with no failures

Regardless of a decrease in the sales volume, the operating profit of Elering for 2020 from main activities increased by 5.5 percent to 32.6 million euros. The operation of the power grid of Elering left almost no-one without electricity in 2020 and the reliability of the submarine cables connecting Estonia to Finland was exceptionally high.

Throughout the entire year, merely 10.3 megawatt-hours of electricity were not served to clients by Elering in the transmission network due to failures, of which the majority – 7.2 megawatt-hours – was caused due to a short-circuit in LVT substation due to a test by an Estonian power plant. Energy not served from ordinary network activities was essentially negligible at the transmission volume of 7,559,159 megawatt-hours. There were no issues in gas supply for the clients of the gas network. The Estonian-Finnish electricity connections EstLink 1 and 2 were available to the market for nearly 97.5 percent of all the hours in the year, which is a high indicator compared to other similar connections.

Taavi Veskimägi, Chairman of the Management Board of Elering, noted that in the next few years, the biggest challenge for Elering is to ensure a sufficient level of security of supply in Estonia for the transition from the Russian electricity system to the Continental European electricity system. “In addition to market-based solutions for ensuring security of supply, we are prepared to intervene and ensure that the level of certain electricity generation capacities situated in Estonia does not go any lower than the 1,000 megawatt limit, which is required for the reliable operation of the electricity system, even in the most extreme of conditions” he noted.

Audited net profit of AS Elering amounted to 25.3 million euros in 2020. “2020 was a good year for Elering regardless of COVID. Despite of the decreased revenues, we were able to meet the profit target and all other performance indicators established by the owner,” explained Veskimägi.

Regardless of the general decrease of 8.3 percent in revenue to 142.4 million euros, the revenues from the main activity only decreased by 1.3 percent and the company managed to increase the operating profit from main activities by 5.5 percent to 32.6 million euros. The general decrease in revenues was largely related to the extraordinary revenue of 10.9 million euros received in the first quarter of 2019 as the result of successful arbitration proceedings.

The decrease in the revenues from main activities stemmed above all from the outside temperature, which was 2.5 degrees higher than usual last year. The transmission volume of electricity decreased by 3.5 percent last year compared to 2019, and the transmission volume of gas decreased by 6.2 percent.

The company invested 85 million euros in fixed assets during the year. The biggest investment were the third Estonian-Latvian electricity connection and investments related to synchronisation.

Elering’s assets amounted to 1.076 billion euros by the end of last year, equity stood at 387 million euros, and debt obligations were 333 million euros.

The audited annual report of Elering for 2020 is available on the website of the company.

Elering is an autonomous and independent integrated electricity and gas system operator whose primary task is to ensure the security of supply of energy to Estonian consumers. For this purpose, the company manages, administers and develops domestic and cross-border energy infrastructure. With its activities, Elering ensures the conditions for the functioning of the energy market and for the development of the economy.