Estlink 2, which started operating in 2014, suddenly broke down at the beginning of the year. The Estonian-Finnish electricity connection, which cost €320 million, should have worked for over 50 years without major problems.

"The cable fault is located at the most technically complex point of the entire undersea cable section. It is at the boundary between the sea and the land, and the fault itself is about six meters deep inside the embankment," explained Reigo Kebja, a member of Elering's board.

The breakdown has raised the price of electricity in Estonia.

"All in all, we have estimated its impact in the 'rear-view mirror' from the beginning of the outage until the end of May, and this impact is less than 10 percent of the final electricity price," Kebja said.

This week when "Aktuaalne kaamera" visit preparatory work was underway to eliminate the fault in Kõrkküla, Viru-Nigula Municipality.

"The more complicated action is to bring the reserve cable here. The cable weighs about 77 kilograms per meter. We have the reserve cable in Sweden, where other European companies also keep their reserve cables. Bringing this cable here presents certain challenges, in turn also the splicing of this reserve cable and the existing cables, as it is essentially 24/7 work," said Reigo Haug, head of Elerinig's HVDC and Power Plant Maintenance Unit.

The exact cause of the cable failure is still unknown and it is unclear how much the repairs will cost.

Elering said the amount of work is comparable to repairing the Estonian-Finnish gas pipeline Balticconnector which cost over €30 million. However, unlike the gas line, Estlink 2 is not insured.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!