On Sunday, electricity prices in Estonia peaked at nearly €400 per megawatt-hour. Costs are not expected to drop significantly in the coming days.

Maintenance work at the Auvere power plant is expected to conclude in approximately one week and should help to lower prices. Experts say, in the longer term, Estonia needs more local generation capacity to keep prices stable.

The current price surge is due to several weeks of extremely cold weather and a lack of wind.

"This is not only happening in Estonia, but across the region, in the Baltics and in Finland as well. Tomorrow, the average daily price there will be €315 per megawatt-hour, and the last time it was higher than that was at the beginning of January 2024," Marko Allikson, board member at Baltic Energy Partners, told Sunday's "Aktuaalne kaamera" evening news show.

Krupenski said: "We have quite a few buildings that use heat pumps or electric heating, and all of these require an electricity supply. This means both our country and our neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania, need a lot of electricity. But unfortunately, we do not have such a large amount of affordable electricity."

The professor said Estonia is currently receiving the maximum output possible from the Estlink undersea cables between Finland and Estonia. But a portion of Estonia's own generation capacity is offline due to the problems with the Auvere power plant and two energy blocks at the Eesti Power Plant.

"At the moment, every megawatt really counts. Sometimes, even a small shortage can cause a major price difference. The price can be €100 higher or €100 lower. Auvere would definitely help as well," Allikson said.

Krupenski added that power plants often do not get to choose when maintenance takes place.

"If a device, like a heat exchanger or some other component, breaks down, repairs must be scheduled. But at the same time, you have to consider that if the country's peak demand is somewhere around 1,500 megawatts and Auvere's capacity is around 300, that's one-fifth, so naturally it has a significant impact on the functioning of our electricity system," Krupenski said.

He believes the consistently high winter electricity prices show that Estonia has made few investments in electricity production over the past 15 years.

Minister of Energy and Environment Andres Sutt (Reform) said there are no quick fixes, but agreed that more local generation capacity is needed.

"Even solar plants can help in cold winter weather. Wind definitely helps. Modern gas plants also contribute. So the more and the faster we can build local generation, the better our price levels will be. If there is political opposition on the local level to building wind farms, then we'll have to accept higher prices as well," he told "Aktuaalme kaamera."

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