Security of gas supply

The Estonian gas transmission system has historically been connected to the Russian transmission system in Värska and Narva. Previously, most of the gas came from Russia, but as of the end of 2022, supplies from Russian points have been banned. Additional infrastructure has also been built to better ensure security of supply. The Balticconnector, completed in 2020, added a connection for Estonia to the Finnish transmission system. In addition, in 2022, the capacity to receive gas from the floating LNG terminal into the Estonian network was built at the Paldiski gas metering station. The network element with the highest transmission capacity in the Estonian gas transmission system is the Karksi gas metering station with a capacity of 10 million m3/day.

Gas storage facilities and LNG terminals play a major role in ensuring security of supply. European Union Member States that do not have underground gas storage facilities must ensure that market participants in that Member State have entered into agreements with underground storage operators in those Member States or with other market participants that have underground gas storage facilities. Such agreements provide that Member States without underground gas storage facilities shall, by 1 November, use storage capacities corresponding to at least 15% of their average annual gas consumption over the previous five years. However, if cross-border transmission capacity or other technical constraints do not allow a Member State without underground gas storage facilities to fully use 15% of this storage capacity, that Member State shall only store the technically feasible capacity.

Several preventive measures are used to mitigate risks and ensure security of supply. The system operator has entered into cooperation agreements with neighbouring system operators for emergency response. In accordance with the Natural Gas Act, the State stores the State’s strategic gas reserves (currently approximately 1 TWh) in the Inčukalns gas storage facility, which can be used to cover Estonia’s gas needs in the event of supply disruptions. The existence of a sufficient volume of reserves for protected consumers, which is stored both in the Elering’s gas pipeline and in the Inčukalns natural gas storage facility in Latvia, has been ensured, and measures have been developed to limit gas consumption and deploy reserves for protected consumers. So-called solidarity agreements have been entered into with neighbouring countries, based on which gas can be obtained to meet the needs of protected consumers in a situation where other measures have been exhausted.

However, there is a risk of consumption being limited due to network congestion during peak consumption periods. Gas supplies to protected consumers must be guaranteed in all the following cases:

• extreme temperatures on seven consecutive peak demand days, as is statistically expected to happen once every 20 years;
• exceptionally high gas demand over a 30-day period, as is statistically expected to happen once every 20 years;
• the largest individually observed gas infrastructure disruption within 30 days under average winter conditions.