Energy, Energy Market, Estonia, Good for Business, Internet, Technology

Until now, VLA could be used to find the approximate available connection capacities at substations that did not require the transmission lines' service capacity to be increased. The app now will calculate expenses needed to connect to a specific substation if an upgrade to transmission lines and additional investments at the substation are needed, Elering said.

"Now investors can find the available connection capacities or expenditures for establishing a new connection capacity at any Elering substation without going through bureaucratic procedures," Taavi Veskimagi, chairman of the Elering management board, said. Up until now, customers planning to connect to the grid could only find out the costs of grid upgrades upon accessing the technical conditions, which can take as much as 60 days to be compiled.

The app calculates the costs of a new connection at a specific substation and for customers who have to establish a new grid connection in order to connect to the transmission grid. The app assumes that the desired connection capacity is a maximum 100 megavolt-amperes in the 110-kilovolt grid, and 300 megavolt-amperes in the 330-kilovolt grid.

The substation data used as a basis for the calculations is updated by Elering at least once a quarter. The date of the update can be viewed in the app's map view.

If a prospective customer desires more detailed information on potential connections, such as the connection fee, the expected date of completion of the connection, detailed technical requirements, they will have to submit an application for a pre-feasibility study to Elering through the egle.ee connection information system.