Security of supply reports and conferences

We did not reach our current situation overnight. Over the past decades, there have been too few market signals in the energy industry that would encourage the construction of new controllable power plants. At the same time, old and inefficient power plants have lost their competitiveness and are gradually leaving the market. This trend is not unique to Estonia, but characterises all of Europe.

The key issue in the coming years is maintaining 1,000 megawatts of controllable capacity in the Estonian electricity system. While it will be possible to cover the need with existing capacities in the coming years, in the longer term, the addition of new capacities must be supported with additional measures, as such capacities will probably not be established in sufficient volume on a market-based basis.

To ensure this, two important initiatives are underway: the establishment of a strategic reserve by 2027 and the possible implementation of an island operation reserve as early as 2026. In addition, Elering has launched a procurement for long-term frequency reserves, which should attract investments in new generating and storage capacities of up to 500 megawatts. This measure should provide additional certainty for investments in new controllable capacities.

In February 2025, a historic moment awaits us – the Baltic States will finally disconnect their power systems from the Russian network and connect to the Continental European system. This step is of significant importance, ensuring the independence of our energy system and greater energy security. Although there is a possibility that the separation could occur earlier and unexpectedly, we are well prepared for this today.

Looking to the future, there is reason for optimism. By the middle of the next decade, we will be up to 70 per cent more strongly connected to our northern and southern neighbours with new international connections – EstLink 3 and the fourth Estonian-Latvian connection. Although the reliability of the Estonian electricity transmission system is already very high, this will both improve security of supply and enable more active electricity trade.

The biggest change in the development of Estonia’s domestic electricity network in the coming years will be the pre-development of the network to make connecting new renewable energy generating capacities to the network faster and easier. With this, Elering contributes to meeting the Estonian renewable energy goals.

However, there are still new challenges ahead. The growing complexity of the electricity network and the electricity market and the geopolitical situation lead to the need to increase Elering’s crisis preparedness. Since the beginning of 2022, we have made significant investments to increase the system’s resilience against various threats, whether cyberattacks or physical disruptions both at sea and on land.

In summary, although Estonia’s security of electricity supply is currently at a good level, we cannot rest on our laurels. The future requires constant preparedness, innovation, and cooperation between all parties in the energy industry. Only in this way can we ensure that the lights in Estonian homes stay on and the rooms stay warm even in the most difficult circumstances.

Security of supply report 2023

Security of supply plan

There is a plan to ensure the security of Estonia’s electricity supply. The plan also has a backup plan, and the backup plan, in turn, has a backup plan.

The 2021–2022 energy crisis and the geopolitically tense situation have made many worry about whether we will still have enough electricity and whether it will be affordable, both in the upcoming winter and in the coming years. The tense environment has added a significant amount of emotions and subjective feelings to the social discussion, which makes it more difficult to make reasoned assessments and explain conclusions. This is probably also the reason for the doubts that have been raised to date that perhaps Estonia has been late in making major and important energy-related decisions and that the security of supply will therefore be poor in the near future. Affordable electricity reaches consumers at any time by connecting more and more power plants that generate electricity from affordable renewable sources to the system. By 2030, Estonia should have enough renewable electricity to cover local consumption on an annual basis. But there will certainly be many hours when local wind and solar power plants are not able to generate enough electricity. At this time, large quantities of electricity can be imported from power plants in other countries. Estonia already has a higher capacity of international connections than our own peak consumption, and we are also preparing for additional connections to both Finland and Latvia. If there is currently not enough resources to generate affordable electricity in the rest of the region or if there is insufficient capacity in the interstate connections, there must also be a sufficient amount of locally controlled electricity generating capacity in reserve. The more renewable power plants there are in the system, the fewer hours the controlled plants need to be operated, but their usable capacity for Estonia must still remain in the order of 1,000 megawatts or slightly above should consumption increase significantly in the future. System operators base their assessment of security of supply on science-based analyses and current regulations. At the same time, system operators have a more conservative approach than average when it comes to all kinds of future assumptions and forecasts, precisely in order to avoid finding themselves in a situation where the expected positive future trend or event did not actually materialise and a problem with security of supply has thus arisen. When assessing security of supply, consideration is given to major emergencies that may occur in the power system, fluctuations in electricity generating capacity caused by climatic variability, higher than usual electricity consumption caused by cold waves, and complex situations that may arise from the interaction of other random factors. An analysis performed in this way could provide sufficient certainty that reality will be less complicated than the forecast made based on the analysis. In the short term, the security of supply is quite clear – we are facing this year’s winter season much more confidently than the year before. In the region, new generating capacities have been added, hydropower reserves are clearly larger, and perhaps the most critical factor is the significantly reduced risk that natural gas, which is an important energy source in Europe, could be in short supply in winter. The Estonian electricity network is operating in an exemplary manner – over 99.99 per cent of energy continues to reach clients. Despite the difficult circumstances, we have managed to keep the network development projects necessary to disconnect from the Russian electricity network and connect to the Continental European network on the originally planned or even accelerated schedule. Considering Estonia’s ambitious renewable energy target for 2030, we are making preparations to strengthen Estonia’s electricity transmission system ahead of schedule in order to accommodate new power plants, the addition of which is only gaining momentum and will probably reach its peak just a few short years before 2030. This way, we avoid the risk that the time- and resource-intensive process of connecting power plants will become an obstacle to launching new generating capacities at the end of this decade. We have mitigated one of the major risks related to network management, which is the potential need to manage keeping the network operational in a situation where an aggressive eastern neighbour may try to use energy as a weapon against us. We are confident that if Russia were to unilaterally disconnect the Baltic States from the power system that has been operating as a common system, we would be able to ensure the stability of our system and connect to the Continental European system without much delay. This is despite the fact that all investments and activities planned for ordinary connection have not yet been completed. We have also reached an agreement with our Latvian and Lithuanian partners to bring forward the ordinary connection to the European electricity network by almost a year in order to further reduce the geopolitical risks arising from an aggressive Russia. To ensure independent management of the power system, or primarily to maintain the balance of generation and consumption after Russia’s disconnection from the system, a market for rapid reserves is being established to be ready to manage changes in the system within seconds. There are sufficient reserves for this, together with the new battery stations in Latvia and Lithuania and the emergency reserve power plants at Elering’s disposal. Reserves are important from another aspect as well – greater flexibility is needed to manage the power system, also considering the growing share of renewable energy, as unpredictability and forecast errors in the system are increasing. The Baltic States’ aim is to obtain the possibility of quickly acquiring reserves years in advance under European Union law, which would give potential investors greater certainty in building new and flexible power plants. Although there is no risk of electricity shortages this winter, changes to the power system, including the expected increase in consumption and the expected closure of depreciated power plants, will strain the situation in the second half of the decade, particularly in 2027–2030. To ensure system capacity, i.e. the availability of power plants necessary to cover consumption, we must be prepared to implement capacity mechanisms. In Estonia, a scenario where the level of controllable capacities operating in the market falls below 1,000 megawatts is quite likely. Over the past five years, Elering has been preparing to implement a strategic reserve, which will ensure sufficient controllable capacity even on a particularly cold winter day, when renewable energy is insufficient to cover peak consumption. If the assumption of increased consumption holds true and the growing consumption volume is mostly covered by renewable electricity, the Estonian electricity system needs a new controllable power plant that can provide quickly starting reserve capacity to ensure stable frequency. After the damage to the Balticconnector on 8 October, the question of whether our infrastructure is still sufficiently protected has come under closer scrutiny. Should we perhaps do something significantly more effective than we have done to date to protect cables and pipes under the sea? The reality, however, is that we constantly take into account possible damage to and failures in the infrastructure, and the system is structured in such a way that in the event of an unexpected loss of a major element, security of supply would not be disrupted. However, it is also important to clearly understand that the infrastructure is scattered across a large territory, both at sea and on land, that it is not realistic to protect it completely, and that simultaneous targeted attacks in many different places can cause so much damage to the infrastructure that it disrupts its overall functioning. Here we have to use the tactic that has proven itself on the Ukrainian battlefield: to be increasingly better prepared to eliminate any intentional or accidental failure as quickly as possible. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have thoroughly reassessed the risks to the physical security of infrastructure and have significantly increased the amount of reserves and introduced new types of backup solutions that can help restore damaged infrastructure to operation more quickly. The complex geopolitical environment as well as organic changes in the energy industry – the triumph of distributed generation and renewable energy, and the rapid addition of complex business processes along with the explosive growth of data volumes – require increasingly greater digital “muscle”. The digital muscle must be trained and attack-resistant, which means that a larger amount of vital data, systems, and processes places high demands on cybersecurity. Systematic risk assessment, improvement of security solutions, coordinated cooperation, and development of employees’ digital skills are increasingly critical areas of activity in the daily work of a modern system administrator. The following report provides a comprehensive overview of the topics described and many others. I would like to thank Elering’s colleagues and partners who participated in drawing up the report, and I wish energy enthusiasts a good read! Kalle Kilk, Chairman of the Management Board of Elering.

Report and useful information

Security of supply report 2023 (19 December 2023) (in estonian)

ENTSO-E Winter Outlook

ENTSO-E ERAA 2023

Estonian National Resource Adequacy Assessment 2023 (17.09.2024)

NRAA 2023 Economic Viability Annex (28.01.2025)

Risk assessment for the upcoming winter in the Baltic Sea region 2023–2024 (in estonian)

Security of supply report 2022

Report and useful information

Security of supply report 2022 (3 May 2023) (in estonian)

ENTSO-E ERAA 2022

Nordic and Baltic Sea Winter Power Balance 2022-2023 report