Estlink 1 is the power connection between Estonia and Finland. It is currently not operational due to a technical failure. The failure is on the Finnish side at the Espoo converter station. According to Nordpool, Estlink 1 will resume operations on the night of September 24.
The failure began on Monday morning at 5:46. According to Elering, it is not sabotage, but a normal technical failure. The failure does not affect the cable, but the converter station. The Finnish system operator Fingrid says the failure is in the reactor of the converter station.
When the Baltic countries produce a lot of renewable energy, the interruption of Estlink 1 has little impact on the electricity price. However, when there is little renewable energy, the electricity price starts to depend on gas power plants and Estonian oil shale plants.
Elering's press representative Liis Eiser says that recently Estlink 2 (650 megawatts) has covered the import demand. Therefore, the maintenance of Estlink 1 did not have a significant impact. However, the electricity market can change quickly, so there is still an impact on the electricity price.
The capacity of Estlink 1 is 350 megawatts. It started operations in 2007. Last week, Estlink 1 was in planned maintenance. In winter, maintenance would have had a greater impact on the electricity market than now.