Last week, former Eesti Energia board chair and head of Nord Pool's Baltic and Russian region Hando Sutter told ERR that he was in favor of gas-fired power plants in Latvia and Lithuania being online during a summer when electricity prices are high.

According to Sutter, the Estonian Competition Authority and their counterparts in Latvia and Lithuania ought to investigate whether gas-fired power plants should be on the market in such situations.

"The regulators' role is to see [whether these producers should be on the market]. And if it turns out that they should have been in the market, that should be dealt with," Sutter said.

"The ERR article refers to gas power plants in Latvia and Lithuania, which are monitored by the Lithuanian and Latvian national regulators respectively. We have close cooperation with the Latvian and Lithuanian regulators as well as with ACER (EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators) and at the moment we are not aware of any market abuse in Latvia or Lithuania," said Marilin Tilkson, head of the Estonian Competition Authority's energy markets department.

Tilkson added that markets in other EU countries are monitored on the same basis as in Estonia and in cases where it is suspected that market rules have been breached, supervisory proceedings are initiated.

According to the Competition Authority, the reason for the increases prices on the Estonian electricity market is mainly down to the EstLink 2 connection between Estonia and Finland is not in operation. This means cheaper Nordic electricity is not currently reaching Estonia.

"At the moment, we can see that the price has been somewhat higher in the evenings. This is due to the fact that there is less solar and wind power in the Baltic states in the evenings. Electricity consumption has also been higher in the evenings, which also has an impact on electricity prices. In addition, some of the power plants in Estonia are under maintenance, which creates a deficit on the production side and creates pressure when it comes to prices," Tilkson said.

There are energy producers in the Baltics that own a variety of different energy generating facilities, including those that use both fossil and renewable energy sources.

The Competition Authority has also previously found that market manipulation was not the cause of record high electricity prices in the Baltics.

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