Elering is Inaugurating its Emergency Reserve Power Plants in Kiisa Today

The Estonian Minister of Economy and Infrastructure Urve Palo, Elering’s CEO Taavi Veskimägi and the Vice President of the Finnish Wärtsilä Group are inaugurating Elering’s emergency reserve power plants today at noon.

„The emergency reserve power plants have already proved to be necessary in a short period of time having been repeatedly used during electricity system failures in Estonia as well as in neighbouring countries since the take-over by Elering. The cost price of electricity generated at Elering’s emergency reserve power plants is one of the cheapest ones in the region and is going to be even more economical in case of potential fall of natural gas prices,“ Elering’s CEO Taavi Veskimägi mentioned.

With the completion of the emergency reserve power plants the biggest investment programme in Elering’s history came to an end by means of which the interconnection capacity between Estonia and Finland reached 1000 MW. The emergency reserve power plants give assurance that interconnections can be seen as being just as reliable as power plants in Estonia for ensuring security of supply.

The total capacity of the two emergency reserve power plants is 250 megawatts or one fourth of the average annual power consumption in Estonia. Elering invested circa 135 million euros into the power plants.

Emergency reserve power plants are needed in order to ensure the flawless functioning of the electricity system in case of failure of a generation unit or an interconnection. The plants can reach their nominal capacity in less than 10 minutes. The emergency reserve power plants do not operate on the electiricty market on a daily basis.

The emergency reserve power plants in Kiisa are the first of its kind in Estonia built specially for providing emergency reserve.