The approximately €30 million expense will be covered by the company from congestion fees collected over the years.

After desynchronizing from the Russian electricity grid, Estonia needs to maintain a stable frequency.

This is now our own responsibility," said Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform). "Under the previous rule, as of July 1, the fee would have had to be charged to consumers, but the government decided to extend the coverage of this cost using congestion fee revenue, which comes from interconnectors and is used to build new interconnections. For consumers, this means a savings of about €30 million."

Minister of the Environment and Energy Andres Sutt (Reform) said Elering's congestion fees have drawn a lot of attention.

"There have been various figures circulating. To put it simply, Elering does not have hundreds of millions sitting in an account. Elering has used congestion fees for various investments that have helped keep network charges lower for consumers," he said.

Elering will cover the cost of frequency reserves until the end of this year.

"Today, we agreed that Elering will submit a proposal to the Competition Authority to approve the coverage of this cost through the end of the year. The scale is €30 million, this will be borne by Elering, not consumers. In the coming months, we will discuss with market participants and agree on what the long-term formula for covering transmission fees will be," said Sutt.

The frequency reserves market is still very young, the minister said. "Prices and volumes fluctuate. That's also why we are assigning Elering the responsibility to cover the cost."

Elering's CEO Kalle Kilk said last week that over the years, Elering has collected more than €600 million in congestion fees, about half of which remains unused. However, using that to lower network fees would only temporarily ease the burden on electricity consumers.

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