Elering maintains the renewable energy charge at the same rate for the third year in a row

The renewable energy charge collected from the end-users of electricity for financing renewable energy grants will be 1.13 cents per kilowatt-hour without value added tax in 2022 – the same rate as in 2020 and 2021.

“In cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, we have found possibilities for using the revenue earned from the sale of statistics on energy produced from renewable energy sources for paying renewable energy grants, which allows us to avoid increasing the charge. Thinking forward, our goal is to ensure the same rate of renewable energy charge or lower the rate for household consumers in 2023 even when a lower rate of renewable energy charge applies to energy-intensive industry”, said Taavi Veskimägi, Chairman of the Management Board of Elering.

According to Elering’s estimate, 90.8 million euros will be spent on paying grants for electricity produced from renewable sources and 3.2 million euros will be spent on grants for electricity produced by means of efficient cogeneration. As estimated, producers of renewable energy will receive grants for 1,690 gigawatt-hours and producers of energy by means of efficient cogeneration will receive grants for 100 gigawatt-hours in 2022.

44 percent of the grants will be spent on supporting electricity produced from biomass and biogas. Wind power will receive 29 percent and solar farms will receive 27 percent of the amount of the grants. Producers of hydropower will receive less than one percent of the grants.

The amount of the grant is affected by the end of the grant period for three major cogeneration plants of electricity and heat while the production of solar farms receiving grants is increasing rapidly.

When calculating the renewable energy charge, the fact that 2.8 million euros fewer have been received for the renewable energy fee than money spent on grants as of the end of October this year has also been taken into consideration. This amount must be covered by the charges collected in the following year. However, when calculating the renewable energy charge for 2022, the receipt of four million euros from the revenue of statistics trading has been taken into account, which reduces the amount of the charge to be collected from consumers.

The renewable energy charge is the cost of financing electricity generated from renewable sources or in an efficient cogeneration process and supplied to the network. Elering calculates the renewable energy charge and prepares and publishes on its website by 1 December the opinion based on the forecasts submitted by network operators, direct line possessors, producers of electricity from renewable sources and in efficient cogeneration, as well as the consumers connected to Elering’s power grid.