Energy in Estonia has heavily depended on fossil fuels. Finland and Estonia are two of the last countries in the world still burning peat.Estonia has set a target of 100% of electricity production from renewable sources by 2030.

Statistics
Energy plan
The  National Energy and Climate Plan published in 2019 aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030 and by 80% by 2050. Renewable energy must be at least 42%, with a target of 16 TWh in 2030The plan was changed in October 2022, when Estonia set a target date of 2030 to generate 100% electricity from renewables.

Energy types
Renewable energy
Renewable energy includes wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy sources.

Wind power
Wind power had a capacity of 320MW in 2020 however investment continues with a €200m 255MW Sopi-Tootsi wind project planned to be operational by 2024.

Solar power
Solar power has received investment since 2014. In 2022, Estonian solar power plants produced 2,569 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of renewable energy. 26 million euros were paid in subsidies for electricity produced via solar power in 2022.

Biomass power
Biomass provides around 25% of the electrical energy capacity.

Fossil fuels
Oil-shale
Oil-shale powered generators in 2019 accounted for 70% of electricity generation in Estonia.The original target to reduce production from oil-shale was 2035 with production ceasing by 2040, has been changed to ceasing oil-shale production by 2030.Between 2018 and 2022 oil-shale extraction and use reduced by 50%.

Natural Gas
Estonia has the Balticconnector pipeline, which links Estonia with Finland.
In April 2022 Estonia reduced gas imports from Russia and on 29 September 2022 Estonia banned buying Natural gas from Russia. Work began on LNG facilities at Paldiski which was completed in October 2022 and increased transmission capacities in existing interconnection points.In December 2022 a floating LNG terminal became operational in Finland which connects to Estonia.

Electricity
Electricity production in Estonia is largely dependent on fossil fuels.
In 2007, more than 90% of power was generated from oil shale.
The Estonian energy company Eesti Energia owns the largest oil shale-fuelled power plants in the world, Narva Power Plants.There are two submarine power cables from Finland, with combined rated power of 1000 MW.
Estonia's all-time peak consumption is 1591 MW (in 2021).It was agreed in 2018 that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will connect to the European Union's electricity system and desynchronize from the Russian BRELL power system, this is expected to be completed by February 2025.A back up plan, should Russia disconnect the Baltic states before 2025, would enable a connection to the European grid to be completed within 24 hours.

Transport sector
In February 2013, Estonia had a network of 165 fast chargers for electric cars (for a population of 1.3 million). This grew to 400 in 2022.

See also
Energy in Latvia
Energy in Lithuania

References


== External links ==