Consumer Electricity Supply is Secure for the Coming Winter

According to the annual production supply assessment prepared by Elering, the electricity supply security of Estonian consumers for the coming winter is assured, with sufficient production and interconnection capacity. At the same time, with new electricity generation facilities and external interconnections in the pipeline, there is no foreseeable danger to supply security for the next 10 years.

“Elering’s job is to ensure the supply security of electricity for consumers at every moment. Today, Estonia already has sufficient production capacity, and with new interconnections to Finland and Latvia, the transmission network is robust enough to give consumers a strong sense of security in regard to the availability of electricity at any time,” commented Taavi Veskimägi, Chairman of the Management Board of Elering.

Interconnections and production facilities are sufficient to ensure the functioning of Estonia’s electrical system even if a larger-than-forecast amount of generation equipment is out of order simultaneously due to emergencies. “The prerequisite to using production capacity in neighboring systems and getting a benefit from strong interconnections is a unified regional market. It only makes sense to build new connections for the purpose of integrating with markets that function similarly,” remarked Veskimägi.

As of September of this year, the combined net installed production capacity of Estonian power plants was 2739 megawatts, out of which 2071 megawatts can be used at peak times. The predicted peak consumption in the Estonian electrical system for the upcoming winter is up to 1524 megawatts, and if the winter is outstandingly cold, the peak may go as high as 1677 megawatts.

New production capacity added to the Estonian electrical system since November 1st of 2012 and forecast to be connected within this year makes up a total of up to 40 megawatts. No extended maintenance is planned for the coming winter at major power stations. Eesti Energia’s Narva Power Plants have placed one block of the Baltic Power Plant into conservation in 2013, and have given notice that they intend to also halt the other blocks after 2016.

Over the next ten years, the peak consumption within Estonia’s electrical system will rise at an average of 2.4 percent per year, reaching around 1692 megawatts by 2023, according to Elering’s estimates. Actual annual peak consumption will remain dependent on air temperature and the nature of the winters – in an especially cold winter, actual peak consumption may turn out to be 10 percent higher than in a normal winter. In terms of electricity production, the development of both smaller combined heat and power plants and wind farms will continue, and a new shale-burning block is under construction at the Auvere power plant.

The assessment of the production capacity supply necessary to satisfy the consumption demands in the Estonian electrical system is available here.