Wind power production increased by 9% in Estonia

In the fourth quarter of 2014, renewable energy accounted for 16.7% of total Estonian consumption, while the figure was 16.9% at the same time in 2013.

 

 

Estonia has taken a commitment to bring the share of renewable energy in the total consumption to 17.6% by the year 2020.

 

Despite the fact that domestic electricity production declined by nearly 6%, 1.36 terawatt-hours, or 18% more electricity was produced from renewable sources in 2014 than in 2013.

 

Last year, state support was paid to renewable energy production worth 1.1 TWh. In monetary terms, this meant that the amount of subsidies for renewable energy grew by 12% to about 60 million euros.

 

56% of the renewable energy production was produced of biomass, biogas and waste – these sources yielded 753 GWh of electricity last year, the production grew by slightly more than a quarter in a year. 32.2 million euros of support was paid to electricity produced from biomass, biogas and waste, compared with 30.1 million euros a year earlier.

 

Wind power yielded 42% of the total renewable energy production in 2014. Wind power production increased by 9%. Wind conditions were better than in 2013 – Pakri Peninsula and Virtsu measurements showed the average daily wind speed increase by an average of 23%.

 

Consequently, wind energy subsidies grew in 2014 by 20% to 26.3 million euros. The ceiling set in the Electricity Act to the wind energy eligible for subsidies (600 GWh per year) was not achieved in 2014.

 

The largest growth was in 2014 posted by solar energy – electricity produced increased from 117 megawatt-hours in 2013 to 524 megawatt-hours in 2014, and the amounts of subsidies increased at the same pace, reaching an annual total more than 28,000 euros.