Elering and Harju, Lääne and Pärnu Counties Signed an Agreement to Develop a New High-Voltage Line

On 12 October, the Estonian Transmission System Operator Elering and the councils of Harju, Lääne and Pärnu counties signed a cooperation agreement to decide the route of the planned Harku–Lihula–Sindi line through the three counties.

The agreement states that Harju, Lääne and Pärnu counties will work together to produce the detailed plans under the heading “Route Details for the Harku-Lihula-Sindi 330/110 kV Overhead Line”, and will carry out a strategic environmental impact assessment of the line. The planned line will run through 11 districts in the three counties and the building cost, like the 162-km Tartu-Viljandi-Sindi 330/110 kV overhead line, will be about 34 million euros.

Taavi Veskimägi, the CEO of Elering, said that in large-scale infrastructure projects that are of great importance for the whole country it is important to find a balance between private property rights and the public interest. “Our shared goal with the detailed planning in the three counties is to find a corridor for the line that causes minimal damage to people’s rights to use their own property and to the environment, without being unreasonably expensive. We must remember that every extra cost that needs to be compensated or paid in any other way for the construction of the line will be reflected in network charges in the end. For that reason we want to use the existing Harku-Lihula-Sindi 110 kV corridor as much as possible,” he explained.

The planned high-voltage line will benefit the whole of mainland Estonia and especially the security of the electricity supply in western Estonia and Tallinn area. When the new line is completed it will allow new, local, environmentally sustainable electricity generators to connect to the grid, which will help to disperse energy production within Estonia. The new line is also important for developing the electricity market between the Baltic States and Central Europe, and Scandinavia.

There is already a 110 kV overhead line of around 170 km running along the Harku-Lihula-Sindi route. The route to be confirmed in the planning will be a twin circuit overhead line with both 330 kV and 110 kV circuits on the same masts and fibre optic lightning protection. The two separate circuits will be carried on shared masts so as to reduce the amount of land falling into the protection zone under the line, and thus the limitations placed on landowners.

The agreement was signed by Taavi Veskimägi, the CEO of Elering, Andres Metsoja, the head of the Pärnu county council, Merle Mäesalu, the acting head of the Läänemaa county council, and Jaan Mark, head of the Harju County Development and Planning Department, on behalf of the head of the council.

Elering plans to hold a public procurement to build the new Harku-Lihula-Sindi high-voltage line in 2016, and the line should be completed in 2019.

More information about the project can be found here (only in Estonian).