No new wind farms to be completed in Estonia this year
No wind farms will be completed in Estonia in 2026 or even next year, despite a 2023 auction whose terms required the developments to be completed by that time.
Major private and public sector energy producers Enefit, Utilitas, Evecon and Enery all committed in a 2023 auction to add 650 GWh of wind power to the national grid. In the cases of Enery and Evecon, in Ida-Viru County, planning processes for the developments have been delayed. Evecon says it will complete its promised park, though only by 2028. The company says it has accepted the loss of its guarantee deposit.
The other generators found too many obstacles relating to state policy, planning issues and protests at the developments.
Johann-Gustav Lend, head of renewables at Enefit, told "Aktuaalne kaamera" the parks are not yet under construction, making their timely completion unlikely.
"We submitted two projects and were successful with both. Each consisted of both wind turbines and solar panels. In the case of both projects, obstacles have arisen either in the planning procedures or, following the planning procedures, in the form of court disputes," Lend said.
Rene Tammist, board chair at Utilitas Wind, meanwhile said state pledges to expedite planning procedures have not materialized.
"The state quite clearly has not managed to fulfill its task, and today all of us consumers are paying for that in the form of high electricity prices. Second, the state retroactively amended the auction conditions by introducing a new fee at the end of last year, something which developers could not have foreseen," Tammist said.
Scope for developing the parks has in other words changed compared with what was offered at auction, and this means the state could also change the completion conditions, Tammist said. "We have repeatedly proposed ways to accelerate planning procedures, firstly. Secondly, as a compromise, that this fee would not be applied to those developments that participated in the auction," he added.
Enefit says it would be willing to forgo the support won at auction if the state refrained from enforcing the guarantees.
"We will certainly continue with the development projects. We have invested tens of millions into them, and as Estonia's largest electricity seller, we see that the addition of any modern generation capacity in our region helps bring electricity prices down," Lend said.
However, the state says it has no intention of amending the conditions regarding the deadline extension, guarantee deposits or the new fee, Hilimon, head of renewable energy at the Ministry of Climate, told "Aktuaalne kaamera."
"Granting any relief here is not possible: On the one hand, since it would be contrary to the law, and on the other, because it could infringe the rights of those other developers who did not win the auction or did not take part at all," Hilimon said.
Estonia now produces more electricity from renewables than fossil fuels, with over 3,600 GWh generated in 2025 (well over half the total generation). As well as wind, electricity is generated from solar energy. However, the government has dropped its 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2030.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Märten Hallismaa
Source: 'Aktuaalne kaamera'
