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The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications is of the opinion that it is sensible to extend the deadline on deciding the construction of a second oil shale-fired power plant at Auvere in northeastern Estonia till the end of March 2014.
Decision on second new power plant to be taken in 2014
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24th January 2013, 16:27
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In connection with the ongoing updating of Estonia's energy sector development plan, it is planned to carry out this year an in-depth analysis of the necessity of building an additional generating unit at Auvere from the point of view of national energy security and supply reliability, the ministry said in its letter to the state-owned power utility Eesti Energia.
"In view of the continued unclarity as to the future of the European energy and climate policy, we deem it expedient to use the opportunity to extend till March 31 next year the option on the second Auvere unit valid till July 14 this year that is provided for in the contract between Alstom and Eesti Energia Narva Power Plants," the ministry said.
The minister of economy and communications, Juhan Parts, told BNS last week that there is as yet no decision on whether or not to build a second production unit at Auvere. "The supervisory board of Eesti Energia submitted to the ministry an application for extending the option," he said.
CEO of the transmission system operator Elering Taavi Veskimagi said in a blog post last week that he hopes the report according to which Eesti Energia has decided against building a second generating unit at Auvere is true as in that case there would be no pressure for subsidization so as to ensure profitability of the investment.
In Elering's judgement Estonia's electricity production capacities and power links with other countries in the next ten years are sufficient to ensure supply reliability at any given moment of time. "This means that there is no need to make today unreasonable business decisions for the sake of supply reliability," he said.
The French Alstom group is at present building the first new generating unit at Auvere which will cost around 640 million euros. A second unit is estimated to cost more than 500 million euros.