The joint agency of Enterprise Estonia and KredEx has allocated more than 580,000 euros for Eesti Energia to prepare the construction of Estonia’s first hydroelectric energy storage facility at the Estonia Mine site in Ida-Virumaa, which after completion will make a significant contribution to ensuring the flexibility and stability of the Estonian electricity system.
The pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant (PSH) planned for the industrial area of Estonia Mine in Ida-Virumaa for 2026 with a capacity of up to 225 megawatts (MW) is a large-scale circular economy project, the construction of which takes advantage of limestone rubble and closed mining tunnels created during oil shale mining. The plant acts as a powerful storage unit, helping to ensure energy security and stability of the power network when started up.
According to Veljo Aleksandrov, Project Director at Eesti Energia, the development is moving at a good pace: the analysis of the technical solution together with the preliminary assessment of environmental effects will be completed at the beginning of next year, followed by the preliminary design with the necessary studies. According to the plan, the preliminary design should be completed by the end of 2023 and the investment decision made in the first half of 2024.
“Ensuring Estonia’s energy security and energy independence with our own assets is more important than ever before,” Mr Aleksandrov said. “In view of the connection to the continental European electricity system planned for 2026 at the latest, it is extremely important that the necessary energy markets and production or storage assets be created in the Baltic States to ensure the security of supply as greenly and cheaply as possible.”
“The international interest in Estonia’s hydropower storage is great because it is a unique project,” he added. “During the next year, we will carry out comprehensive and versatile studies with our partners, supported by the applied research program of Enterprise Estonia, which must provide certainty that our solution will work.”
Eesti Energia will be ready to enter the market with its PSH plant in 2025-2026 in accordance with Elering’s synchronisation plans if the necessary system services markets are created. The pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant will provide solutions to several challenges at the same time, because, in addition to ensuring the security of supply, it promotes the introduction of renewable energy, helps to achieve waste-free production and reuses industrial areas on the way to a circular economy-based carbon-neutral chemical industry.
The purpose of the applied research program is to support knowledge-intensive product and technology development in Estonian businesses.
“Estonia’s economic-strategic goal is the production with higher added value,” commented Kaupo Reede, Program Development Manager of Enterprise Estonia’s applied research program. “This requires the development of smarter and more expensive products and services, which means conducting applied research. At the same time, the applied research stage is risky, as the investments are large and there is no certainty of the success of the development, so, the state supports ambitious technology projects similar to the ones of Eesti Energia.”
