Emergency reserve plants
The power system needs emergency reserves to ensure smooth operation of the system in the event of failures. Elering launched a procurement for the construction of emergency reserve capacities in 2010, and the emergency reserve power plants near Kiisa were completed in 2013 and 2014.
The total capacity of the two emergency reserve power plants is 250 megawatts, or more than a quarter of the average annual consumption capacity in Estonia. Elering invested approximately 135 million euros in the plants. It is the largest single investment in Elering’s history to date.
The plants run on natural gas and, if necessary, diesel fuel and are capable of reaching full capacity in less than 10 minutes. Emergency reserve power plants do not participate in the electricity market on a daily basis — the power system control centre only activates them in the event of an emergency in one of the power plants operating on a daily basis or in an international connection. The construction of emergency reserve power plants was an important prerequisite for the establishment of the second Estonian-Finnish power connection, EstLink 2.
Emergency reserve power plants typically operate for a few hundred hours per year. The plants can also be used to restart the power system in the event of a complete outage. Before the emergency reserve power plants were completed, Elering purchased emergency reserve services from Latvia.