The key to making the price of electricity more affordable is for Estonian municipalities to have as many wind farms as possible, said Rein Vaks, head of the energy department of the Ministry for Climate Change, in the “First study”.
Vaks stated in the program that Estonia’s energy policy works and this is demonstrated by the fact that Estonia ranks fifth in the European Union when it comes to the development of renewable energy. According to him, the next step will be the construction of more wind farms, which should lower electricity prices.
“More wind turbines on land, as many wind turbines as possible in every municipality. This is the place where we can finally lower the price of electricity,” he said.
Estonia’s goal is to cover 100% of its consumption with wind energy by 2030. According to Vaksa this is an ambitious goal, although according to critics we should think big and take into account the fact that consumption of electricity is increasing.
“Estonia’s ambition is quite high among EU member states. Furthermore, our potential is significant. It’s just a question of when we will start using this potential and who will benefit from it,” Vaks said.
“I dare say that we should not produce more renewable energy than we consume, simply because this renewable energy production usually comes from someone’s pocket. Someone has to pay for it. I think the Estonian consumer is not at all satisfied with having to pay for this renewable electricity, which is produced in Estonia, but consumed in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. This does not seem logical. This in turn means that we need more consumption, new industries, which in turn create new jobs. these they must be addressed simultaneously, and the Ministry of Climate and the Ministry of Economy and Communications are addressing them together,” he added.
Recently the price on the Nord Pool electricity exchange rose to almost two euros per kilowatt hour. According to Vaksa, the stock exchange works and reacts to such prices.
“I believe that here it is not necessary to give too much importance to these few hours a year, where the price of electricity is higher than what we are used to. The market reacts to this, and in fact, in the short term, these wrinkles will be The example of last summer: there were many times when the price of electricity was zero, close to zero or even negative, and all this thanks to the entry of new renewable energies into our market. working today with all its strength so that we have enough renewable energy on the grid so that these summer prices are the ones we know well in autumn and, if possible, also in winter,” commented Vaks.
According to Vaksa, gas-fired power plants should continue to be operated in managed capacity in Estonia.
“It’s true that even if we reached our 2030 goal of producing all our consumption from renewable sources on balance, we will still have a third of the hours a year in which the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. In this case, they have need controlled power plants that do not depend on whether it is hot, cold, windy or sunny outside. We have such power plants in Estonia. /…/ It will be difficult for them in the near future: they are no longer competitive and probably will not be able to perform their task equally well in the near future, as we understand from the Elering security of supply report,” said Vaks.
“The only logical way forward is gas-fired power plants, and today we actually already see that investment decisions for gas-fired power plants have come from the market, Eesti Energia is a great example considering the current situation where they want bring gas and hydrogen power plant to the market. It will also come in 2025. The acquisition of the Elering frequency reserves, where we are looking at 300-400 megawatts. And that’s how these controllable capacities come to us, we can’t do it otherwise”, he added .
2024-01-10 20:47:00
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