At the Bottom of the Baltic Sea, the Main Cable Between Estonia and Finland is Damaged Again. This Time, It's Electrical

At the bottom of the Baltic Sea, the main power cable linking Estonia and Finland has once again suffered damage, this time resulting in an electrical outage during the night of January 25-26. The cause of the incident is currently unknown, as reported by the state-owned company Elering. However, according to ERR, there is no immediate threat to the electricity supply in the region.

Operators of the transmission systems in Estonia and Finland are investigating the causes of the outage, including the precise location of the malfunction. EstLink 2 comprises converter stations in Estonia and Finland, along with a direct current line stretching over 170 kilometres. Approximately 12 kilometres of the line run as underground cables in Estonia, nearly 147 kilometres along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland as a submarine cable, and about 14 kilometres in Finland as an overhead power transmission line.

"Estonia has sufficient generating capacity to compensate for the imported electricity through EstLink 2. Additionally, our neighbors in Latvia and Lithuania have surplus capacities. Therefore, we do not see any risks to the security of electricity supply at the moment. Moreover, EstLink 1 cable is operating normally," stated Erkki Sapp, a board member of Elering.

It is noted that wind power generation in Estonia was nearly zero on Friday. This implies that more electricity sourced from fossil fuels will enter the market, leading to an increase in the cost of electricity for Estonian consumers.

"We continue to import a significant amount of electricity from Finland, which is cheaper than the cost of production at Baltic power plants operating on fossil fuels. EstLink 2 allows the import of 650 MW into Estonia, representing about 50% of the electricity consumed in Estonia on weekends and approximately 20% of the total electricity consumed in the Baltic countries," added Erkki Sapp.

During previous disruptions in EstLink 2, the price of electricity in Estonia experienced fluctuations ranging from a few percentage points to several hundred percentage points.

Recall that in October 2023, the Balticconnector, a marine gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, ceased operations due to damage caused by the Chinese vessel Newnew Polar Bear dragging an anchor 185 kilometres along the Baltic Sea floor. The pipeline has not yet been repaired. Simultaneously, a communication cable connecting Estonia to Sweden was also damaged.