Due to the rejection of Estonia will spend a billion in Russia: residents will pay for power plants

Having left the BRELL energy ring, the Baltic countries are forced to have expensive reserve capacities, which were previously provided by Russia. In Estonia, this role is now performed by shale oil power plants, but they will have to be replaced within 10 years and generation capacities with a total cost of 1 billion euros will have to be built. Ordinary Estonians will have to pay this money out of their pockets.

Elering, the operator of the Estonian energy system, predicts that by 2035 the country will need power plants with a total capacity of 2.1 GW. Almost half of them should be new.

"The gas-fired power plant has been chosen now because it has the lowest investment cost per megawatt. Of course, the option of shale was also discussed, but there the cost of construction, which would provide one megawatt, is three times higher — about three million euros. There is also a variant of a nuclear power plant. The most profitable investment for the company will be chosen, the construction of stations for a thousand megawatts will cost about a billion euros," Andrus Dureiko, chairman of the Board of Eesti Energia, said on the air of the Actual Camera, reports ERR.

According to him, consumers will have to pay the costs. And this will be an additional fee for the country's exit from the BRELL C energy ring Russia and Belarus, as we are talking about backup power plants, which are idle most of the time and are needed only in crisis situations: with very high demand or system failures. We are talking about paying for the reliability that neighboring countries used to provide to the Baltic states.

"Yes, it's like an insurance policy. It has a cost, and at the moment when the need arises, these stations should be fully operational. And society and all of us will pay for it," said the head of the state—owned company.

Andrus Dureiko explained that starting next year, additional charges for maintaining existing reserve capacities will appear in electricity bills.

"If we collect 60 million a year, it guarantees us at least a thousand megawatts from existing old stations. At some point, new ones will start coming in their place, and every year a certain amount will be collected in the same way. If today the maintenance of stations producing a thousand megawatts costs the average consumer about two euros per month, then it can be assumed that in the future it will not be much more," said Calle Kilk, head of the Elering operator.