ERR News wrote on November 26 that Ireland's Cabinet signed off on plans to pay Denmark €12.5 million and Estonia €37.5 million for a total of 3,500 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity. Ireland will purchase renewable energy from Estonia to achieve their European Union requirements for renewable energy production.

"Estonia can produce more renewable energy today than is set as a requirement by the European Union," said Aas.

"We and the Irish are on a common European Union energy market, which is why we can help Ireland with their requirements with this deal. In this way, we earn our profit, while also accelerating the development of our sector," the minister continued.

Estonia and Ireland will sign the agreement in Dublin this Friday. As has been the case with earlier deals, the income must be used to develop renewable energy production.

"Earnings from previous deals have been used to co-finance Elering's renewable energy supplementary budget. Since this deal is larger, we are trying to find use for the money where renewable energy development would be on largest scale. The use of income from the deal will be decided by the government," Aas said.

The amount sold to Ireland is equal to Estonia's production surplus for 2020. The agreement will also include an option to increase the amount by another 1,000 gigawatt-hours, in case Estonia's actual surplus ends up greater than forecast.

In January of this year, Estonian Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure Taavi Aas (Center) and Maltese Minister for Energy and Water Management Michael Farrugia signed a contract in Valletta, which allows Malta to purchase renewable energy statistics from Estonia for €2 million.

Aas said at the time that Estonia had increased the proportion of renewable energy from its target of 25 percent to 31 percent by 2020, and this allows it to sell the statistical surplus to countries who have, for one reason or another, failed to reach their targets. 

Before that, Estonia had sold renewable energy statistics also to Luxembourg.

The European Union supports the purchase and sale of renewable energy quotas in order to allow member states to jointly and efficiently reach renewable energy targets on the principle that energy must be produced at the locations with the best prerequisites and possibilities.

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