Estonia’s transmission system operator Elering has applied to the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority to be granted a superficies license for constructing the third electricity interconnection between Estonia and Finland, with the onshore connection point situated in northwestern Estonia.
The third electricity interconnection with Finland will further contribute to the security of supply, achieving climate and energy policy goals and bind the Baltic and Nordic countries into an even more cohesive market area.
“We have analysed various potential locations for EstLink 3 and we now consider northwestern Estonia to be the most promising area,” said Kalle Kilk, Chairman of the Management Board of Elering. “Elering has analysed various regions west of Tallinn. For security reasons, it will be appropriate to build the new interconnection as far as possible from the existing ones. In the long term, this route option will allow connecting the development areas of offshore wind farms that could potentially be built in the area of western Estonian major islands with the resilient power grid.”
Elering applied for a superficies license for the submarine part of EstLink 3 along with the coordinates for the potential onshore connection point of the submarine cable in Lääne-Nigula municipality. The exact location of the route may change in the course of the procedure related to the license. The location of the interconnection also depends on the onshore connection point of the planned submarine interconnection in Finland.
In Estonia, the planned EstLink 3 consists of a direct current submarine cable, overland cable, a converter station with a potential location around Aulepa and a new 330-kilovolt overhead transmission line on land which will connect EstLink 3 to the existing 330-kilovolt grid in Western Estonia. Power lines will need to be additionally reinforced elsewhere in Estonia before launching EstLink 3.
The European Commission has added the EstLink 3 project to the list of projects of common European interest, which creates the prerequisites for involving the support of the European Union for financing the new interconnection.