Peak price within the day on Sunday, January 9, will come between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., when electricity will cost €234.19 per Mwh, according to the NordPool trading market, while it will exceed the €200-per-Mhw mark on the two hours either side of that time segment.

The cheapest time is between midnight and 4 a.m.

The average NordPool price for the whole of Saturday, January 8, stood at €159.96 per Mwh.

Electricity prices as a whole rose 120 percent on year to December 2021, according to recently released statistics, while all-time records were successively posted through fall and early winter, reaching a peak so far of €469 per Mwh just over a month ago, while prices broke the €1,000-per-Mwh mark briefly and for one hour during that day, for the first time.

Natural gas, district heating and vehicle fuel bills have all soared to varying extents over the same time frame, rises which have made their presence known in the overall rate of inflation as well.

This has all prompted the government to issue two support packages, reflecting the two parties that makes up the coalition, Reform and Center. One support measure reimburses up to 50 percent of the network fee to grid distributors, given this is discounted to end-user bills (in the case of natural gas, a 100 percent discount/reimbursement has been granted). In practice this affects large end users such as businesses, more than it does households.

The other measure provides aid to households below set thresholds of income - €1,126 per month gross pay in the case of one adult earner, €2,365 in the case of a household with two children – but beneficiaries have to apply themselves, via whichever of Estonia's 79 local municipalities they happen to live in, and on whom the state has placed the administrative burden.

The head of state, President Alar Karis, recently criticized the way this has been handled, given the potential solutions which might arise from the much-vaunted Estonian e-state, which has often been presented externally to the world.

A third proposed measure, slashing VAT on energy bills from 20 percent to 8 percent for the rest of this year, is the central policy of a bill tabled by opposition party Isamaa to be presented to the Riigikogu when the chamber comes back off its four-week vacation next week.

Reform has consistently opposed the measure, while its coalition partner, initially in favor, has by the pronouncements of its leaders acquiesced to Reform's line somewhat.

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