Estonia's Elering prepares grid for new 1,500 MW of generation capacity

Estonian transmission system operator Elering has released a new grid development plan aimed at preparing the electricity network for new generation facilities with a combined capacity of 1,500 megawatts, while also reinforcing the grid in the country's largest consumption centers.

Elering board member Reigo Kebja explained that the plan focuses on three main areas: preparing for the connection of new generation facilities, strengthening the grid in consumption centers to handle rising load, and improving the network's resilience during crises. In practice this mainly means reconstructing the existing grid, built in the mid-20th century, rather than building new lines, in order to significantly increase its capacity.

Electricity consumption is expected to grow primarily in Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu and Jõhvi. Elering board chairman Kalle Kilk said the main reason for revising the development plan is that Estonia needs to build a considerable number of new power plants while also keeping pace with rising consumption in the large load centers.

Elering and distribution operator Elektrilevi are jointly assessing how far the high-voltage transmission grid should be expanded versus where Elektrilevi's own distribution network would be a more efficient solution. According to Kebja, such optimization could save more than 50 million euros in total investment costs.

Future power plants to be spread across Estonia

Kilk noted that average electricity consumption in Estonia has been growing by roughly 1% per year, though there is a significant gap between rural areas and cities, where new types of consumption — such as district heating systems switching to electricity and growing electric vehicle charging — are increasing demand. Currently many of the country's power plants are concentrated in Ida-Virumaa, where aging oil-shale plants are gradually being taken out of service; future generation capacity will instead be distributed across the whole country.

Elering estimates that in ten years Estonia should reasonably have just over 2,000 megawatts of dispatchable power plants and more than 2,000 megawatts of cheaper, weather-dependent generation — a total of 4,000 to 4,500 megawatts, compared with just over 3,000 megawatts currently.

Future data centers are not included in the plan, though Elering has analyzed the extent to which they could be connected. Kilk said that because the transmission grid was significantly strengthened as part of the synchronization project, data centers of a few hundred megawatts could now be connected to grid nodes without major issues. However, the grid is not ready for 1,000-megawatt data centers, since Estonia's power system remains relatively small.

Kilk did not disclose the cost of the plan, saying roughly half would be covered through the electricity tariff and the other half through various subsidies and other financial support. Kebja said that over the next five years, tariff-funded investment will amount to 80-90 million euros annually.