Green Energy in Estonia: Where do We Stand?
Estonian news - etea July 1, 2010
Estonian Free Press, 01.07.2010
Whether aesthetic tastes accepts it or not, wind turbines are starting to be part of the Estonian landscape and they are starting to become also important to produce energy, to reduce the pollution and also to create new jobs and develop the energy industry sector in the country.
Wind turbines in Estonia produced last year 172 Giga watts hour (GWh), which means around 65.400 homes were powered by the wind turbines that you can find, especially, in the West Coast of Estonia, where the wind is more powerful.
However, there are a lot of wind parks under development in the East part which are going to be built in coming years.
Nowadays, there are 70 turbines in Estonia. Nevertheless, Tuuliki Kasonen-Lins, the general manager of Estonian Wind Power Association (EWPA), pointed out during a talk with Estonian Free Press that «This number is not important, because it is the capacity of a turbine that matters. Today we have wind energy’s total capacity in Estonia about 150MW».
As Kasonen explained to Estonian Free Press, when a wind turbine starts to work, the following maintenance is quite low. However to «build a wind turbine, as to install any energy plant, is very expensive. For example, a one megawatt (MW) wind turbine with all the installing costs is around 1.8 million Euro», Kasonen said.
Adding also that, to build a wind park, there are two things to keep in mind. First of all, wind has to be measured during a year to see if the place is going to be profitable. For then, second fundamental step, seeking for the approval of the local authorities.
A problem, for instance, that developer had to face at the time when the Paldiski wind park started to become reality was the very specific geologic conformation of the soil which, and here Ms. Kasonen stated it clearly, should however not be seen as a problem because of the big distance between the windmills and the troublesome Paldiski falling-coast.
Alternative energies are becoming more important although in Estonia the wind industries is not as developed as in the leading wind energy countries in Europe. But «we have just recently formed a cluster of companies and universities so we could be together stronger to participate in international energy production and technology cooperation projects», Kasonen emphasized.