Energy, Estonia, Financial Services, Legislation

The subsidies to electricity produced by wind energy generators will remain the biggest while oil shale-powered Narva Power Plant, which also produces electricity of timber, will start receiving the smallest subsidies.

Narva Power Plants manager Tõnu Aas said that pegging the subsidies to bourse prices is the right thing to do but the subsidy should be reasonable and depend on expenditures. The economy ministry plan would mean that the Narva plants would get around three times less of subsidies for electricity they produce of timber than Finnish electricity producers get now. Also renewable energy producers want a stable investment climate.

“I think that this is the fifth time since 2003 that the subject has been raised. Stability is important from the point of view of investing, which we would also expect to make the next investments,” he said.

Economy minister Juhan Parts said that the current subsidies are useful for producers but the consumer has to pay too much as the result. Parts said that as to investments, new ones are not a problem, the problem is investments that have already been made. “The problem from the point of view of the state and the consumer is that the market situation has considerably changed since we approved of the subsidies valid today,” said Parts. “We have a market price and thus profitability is too high as compared to the burden on consumers,” he said.