Estonians will be charged another cost for breaking the energy ring with Russia

This year, Estonians will have to face another consequence of the country's withdrawal from the single energy ring with Russia, BRELL. The Estonian power system operator plans to increase the cost of distribution by more than a third.

"Elering has submitted a petition to the Competition Department to raise the price of electricity transmission services by 37.6 percent from next year — from 12.5 euros per megawatt-hour to 17.2 euros per megawatt-hour," writes ERR.

He cites the company's explanations that the increase in fees is necessary to compensate for costs, as well as the development of renewable energy.

"We have been able to postpone price increases for many years. To cover the additional costs caused by the energy crisis, we used the congestion revenue received from Nord Pool. In the future, we will not be able to use the revenues from congestion to cover additional costs," said Kalle Kilk, Chairman of the Elering Management Board.

He believes that rising prices for raw materials, the changed geopolitical situation and an increase in the share of renewable energy sources make fee increases inevitable.

"Elering has turned from an electricity transmission company into a guarantor of supply reliability. Our task is to ensure the availability of electricity even in the event of a power plant failure or when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining," Kale Kilk said.

Elering notes that the prices for the reconstruction of old lines have increased significantly. In addition, the expenses of the power system operator are affected by large investments made in recent years, the purpose of which was to increase the capacity and resilience of the network to crises when leaving the energy ring with Russia and Belarus.

"In particular, supplies of critical equipment and disaster recovery systems were purchased to cope with difficult geopolitical conditions," the publication says.

Elering plans to receive an additional annual income of approximately 24.5 million euros.

"The tariff increase will directly affect Elering's customers — a small number of large enterprises and distribution network enterprises, including Elektrilevi," ERR writes.

The operator himself reports that the new tariff will mean additional costs of about 1.6 euros per month for household consumers. For enterprises, expenses will increase by 1.1% of the final price of electricity.

The leader of the opposition Isamaa party, Urmas Reinsalu, has already stated that the increase in the Elering network fee by 37.6% is economically unreasonable and will lead to an increase in prices in Estonia.

Minister of Energy and Environment Andres Sutt also reacted. In his opinion, the operator is asking too much.

"The transfer fee has really remained at the same level for 12 years, so a small increase is inevitable. But it should be in moderation. Almost 40 percent are not moderate. I asked Elering to correct the application," Andres Satt wrote on one of the social networks.

As EADaily reported, Estonian consumers will have to pay extra for electricity this year due to the country's withdrawal from the BRELL C power ring. Russia and Belarus. The Baltic states had to create a new market for balancing capacities, when power system operators buy out the capacity of idle power plants in case of a shortage of electricity. Previously, the differences were compensated by a single energy ring.

The Baltic States did not import electricity from Russia has been operating since 2022, but the BRELL energy ring, from which the Baltic countries withdrew in February 2025, made it possible to balance the energy systems. Since February, when three countries disconnected from BRELL, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is facing consequences.