At 12:26 p.m. on Wednesday, Estlink 2, the direct current power link connecting Estonia and Finland’s electricity systems, was shut down due to a fault.
The cause of the outage is currently unknown, Estonian transmission system operator (TSO) Elering announced Wednesday afternoon, adding that it and Finnish TSO Fingrid are working quickly to identify the issue.
Elering emphasized that the security of Estonia’s electricity supply is guaranteed. Through the end of Thursday, the TSO will, if necessary, utilize reserve capacities available in the region to compensate for the electricity that was expected to be delivered via EstLink 2. These reserves are activated in such situations.
Should the fault take longer to resolve, beginning Friday, EstLink 2 will be substituted by other production facilities located within the region.
“The exact reserve capacities that will be activated depends on the market situation, but these reserve capacities exist in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” Elering board member Reigo Kebja told ERR on Wednesday.
“In Estonia, there are various market participants, including in Ida-Viru County, who offer these reserves, but it’s still highly dependent on the market situation,” he continued. “For example, there are reserve power plants in Lithuania too, such as the Lithuanian pumped storage hydroelectric power plant, as well as hydroelectric plants in Latvia. Which power plant is activated will depend on the market situation.”
At this stage, deliberate damage to the power cable cannot be ruled out, as they still lack sufficient information about the outage, but Elering is unaware of any suspicious movement in the area of the cable or its substations, Kebja added.
“Since this information is still so fresh, what I can confirm is that our people are out there 24/7, along with our partners from Finland, to figure out the cause,” he emphasized. “Unfortunately, we also can’t say when exactly that will happen.”
The exact location of the fault is likewise still unknown, he added.
From Wednesday morning until the malfunction that caused EstLink 2 to shut down shortly after midday, electricity was being transmitted from Finland to Estonia at a capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW).
Following the fault, only EstLink 1 with its 350 MW transmission capacity remained operational.
Costly shutdown earlier this year
EstLink 2 also shut down due to a fault this January, with repairs lasting until early September and costing over €30 million.
The power link’s extended outage also ended up costing consumers in Estonia at the time. According to Elering, electricity prices during this period increased by 10 percent, meaning consumers paid approximately €18 more per megawatt-hour (MWh) during the outage.
Estonian state-owned energy group Eesti Energia estimates that with each passing month, the malfunction had an increasingly significant impact on electricity prices. For example, during the second quarter of 2024, the outage may have hiked electricity prices in Estonia by as much as €24 per MWh.
January’s fault was attributed to an internal short circuit in the power cable itself, which may have been caused by the cable’s complex positioning. Elering announced in September that they hoped to have a detailed analysis of what caused January’s fault completed by the end of the year.
EstLink2 consists of converter stations in Estonia and Finland and a direct current line spanning over 170 kilometers between the southern and northern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Of this 170 kilometers, approximately 12 kilometers of the cable is located underground on Estonian soil, some 147 kilometers runs along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland, and around 14 kilometers runs as an overhead line on Finnish soil.
EstLink 2 has a transmission capacity of 650 megawatts (MW). Estonia and Finland’s other electricity connection, EstLink 1, has a capacity of 350 MW.
—
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!