Energy, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Legislation

Yesterday, a sales contract was concluded for the first Estonian–Finnish submarine cable EstLink 1, making the Finnish grid network company Fingrid and Estonian grid network company Elering the new owners of the transmission cable as of 30 December, 2013.

Previously, the Finnish and Estonian transmission system operators have rented the cable capacity from its owners, Nordic Energy Link (NEL) and N.E.L. Finland Oy, the shareholders of which are Eesti Energia (holding of 39.9%), Latvenergo (25%), Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba (25%), and Finestlink (10.1%).

For the sales transaction to take effect, the Estonian Competition Authority has to give its consent, after which the assets will be owned 50% by the Finnish grid network company Fingrid and 50% by Elering as of 30 December this year.

President and CEO of Fingrid Jukka Ruusunen notes that EstLink 1 opened the Baltic electricity markets to competition in a whole new way. After the transaction, the connection can be utilised more efficiently than before. Moreover, the EstLink 2 submarine cable, to be taken into use in early 2014, almost triples the transmission capacity between Finland and Estonia. According to Ruusunen, after these changes the transmission capacity between the two countries will be on a good level, creating an excellent basis for developing the electricity markets of the Baltic Sea region.

The purchase of EstLink 1 is the final step for Elering in the process of taking over all transmission assets from Eesti Energia AS. It is largely thanks to the two EstLink cable projects that we have seen a tremendous development of the Estonian power market in becoming a natural part of the common Nordic-Baltic electricity market over the past couple of years. This means high transparency and efficient market setup, a larger choice for customers and better opportunities for power generators to utilize their production capacities, Taavi Veskimägi, CEO of Elering, noted.

EstLink 1, active since the end of 2006, is the first connection between the networks of Baltic and Nordic countries. The EstLink 1 cable was established by Eesti Energia, Latvenergo from Latvia, Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba from Lithuania, and Finestlink (joint company of Pohjolan Voima and Helsingin Energia) from Finland.

The transmission capacity of EstLink 1 is 350 MW. The total length of the cable is 210 kilometres (two parallel cables 105 kilometres long), of which 148 kilometres are under the sea and 62 kilometres on land. The deepest section of the cable is 100 metres below sea level on the seafloor.