At the start of this month, the power station, which had only just undergone routine maintenance, experienced some new malfunctions. Enefit Power, a subsidiary of the state-owned Eesti Energia responsible for the Auvere plant, launched an internal investigation to establish the cause.

Despite previous glitches, Auvere had run reliably at 90 percent capacity for the first nine months of this year.

The recent issues led to a two-week shutdown, and restarting the plant proved infeasible.

Enefit Power CEO Lauri Karp said the problems were unlike any he had seen before and may be linked to poor maintenance.

He told ERR: "One of the most important causes of failures at the large station is that maintenance has not been regular, and that's where the errors come from."

"And the question is whether the postponements of major repairs had led to this outcome. I cannot give you a definitive confirmation on that today; we are still conducting an internal investigation," Karp continued.

"By the end of October, there should be a report on the table on the root cause of the recent incidents," Karp added.

Public reaction to Auvere's issues has been strong, with some calling it a waste of state funds. This is in direct contrast to the much milder reaction in Finland to its Olkiluoto-3 nuclear reactor being offline for a long period.

Karp said: "Well, to some extent we can say that Auvere is almost Estonia's 'nuclear power plant': It's always [bringing electricity] to the market, always functioning, but if something happens to it, we sigh, clench our fists, and think, how could this be? Perhaps the root cause lies in the fact that Auvere was born as a political decision, and how a plant like this actually performs is only monitored years later."

Restart efforts began on Wednesday, and if successful, Auvere may even be back online today at a capacity of 300MW.

Auvere was responsible for generating around a third of the 3.8 TWh of electricity produced in Estonia from January to September this year.

Auvere Power Plant forms part of the Narva complex of power stations, but far from being a creaking Soviet-built installation, it is barely a decade old. Its overall capacity is 600MW, and it is shale-oil-fired.

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