In 2024, electricity consumption in Estonia totaled 8 terawatt-hours (TWh), of which 5.4 TWh was produced domestically. For several years now, the amount of electricity produced and brought to market has been less than the amount consumed. According to a forecast by Elering, consumption will rise above 10 TWh by 2030.

While new grid connections with neighboring countries are planned, they will not be completed before 2033. Existing connections have also been out of service at times due to various malfunctions. This means Estonia's electricity deficit will grow further in the coming years. The situation is critical for both private consumers and businesses and is having a severely negative impact on our economy's competitiveness.

Renewable energy has the greatest growth potential in the near term. It is the cheapest and most accessible way to achieve lower electricity prices and reduce energy dependence. It also helps create new jobs and avoid dangerous air pollution and climate change.

New generation capacity is also critical in the context of economic competitiveness. While Estonia's total wind power capacity is 700 megawatts (MW), Finland's has already reached 8,000 MW and Lithuania's 1,500 MW. New industrial enterprises can only be established and existing ones expanded in areas where there is enough clean electricity at a competitive price. Decentralized electricity generation is also crucial for energy security. The last building permit for a wind farm in Estonia was issued in 2020. Since then, political indecision has caused complete stagnation.

Offshore wind development was recently put on hold again because no decision has been made on how to ensure investment security for developers. A potential support measure was sunk by the ministry itself with a scare figure: €2.6 billion over 20 years.

No one paid attention to further explanations and analyses. Not to the fact that under the most realistic scenario, the actual cost would have been around €700-800 million. Nor to the fact that for every euro invested by consumers, we would get back two euros through lower prices — and a third and fourth through economic growth.

Since the portfolios of the prime minister and the minister responsible for energy have been held by the Reform Party in recent years, the party bears primary political responsibility for the decisions left unmade. Slogans about being business-friendly and improving economic competitiveness ring hollow. Too much time has simply been wasted — at a time when ensuring energy security and supply reliability should be among the highest priorities.

Faster construction of new generation capacity requires changes in legislation and development plans. It is also essential to ensure investment security for companies planning to bring new production capacity to market, through various support measures.

The government has been sending draft legislation to the Riigikogu in pieces — bills aimed at promoting renewable energy — but most of it is fine-tuning that will not bring about a real breakthrough. This stagnation amounts to regression, as new investments in generation cannot be made without a sufficient supply of clean, lower-impact electricity.

The draft National Energy and Climate Plan sets an ambitious target: by 2030, Estonia should have 2,850 MW of onshore wind capacity. Currently, we are more than 2,000 MW short of that. Looking at the status of municipal wind farm planning, we'll be lucky if half of that target is met. Of course, new storage and dispatchable capacity must also be introduced, particularly to level out price spikes. But the majority of new capacity must come from renewables, which help reduce the average electricity price. Dreaming of our own nuclear plant is no solution either, since it likely won't be ready before 2040. We're resigning ourselves to defeat if we decide to wait 15 years and do nothing in the meantime.

The anti-wind crusade launched by EKRE is pure absurdity and has unfortunately frozen the planning process in several municipalities. EKRE's goal is purely political visibility, cynically exploiting people's fears and lack of information. It's reminiscent of the 19th-century Luddite movement in England, where desperate, unemployed workers attacked textile factories and smashed new machines with sledgehammers.

People need to understand that being used as pawns in the wind turbine war is preventing new businesses from coming to their area, hindering the development of entire regions. Wind power developers often offer local residents and businesses cheaper electricity — not to mention wind royalties that benefit both municipalities and people living near turbines. Spreading pseudoscience and shouting at public meetings are shameful tactics.

Isamaa, too, has recently focused solely on populist short-term politics. As recently as 2022, a government that included Isamaa passed a law declaring that by 2030, 100 percent of electricity consumed in Estonia should come from renewable sources.

Isamaa showed its renewed love of oil shale in 2022, when, under the flashy name of electricity market reform, it introduced a state-fixed electricity package — called the universal service — in which electricity was produced exclusively from oil shale. The result was that people and businesses who fell for Isamaa's slogans ended up paying tens of millions of euros more compared to market-based packages.

I expect more responsibility and decisiveness from experts, officials and politicians. And of course, decisions must be knowledge-based. Many so-called experts appearing in public and in the media are not neutral; they skillfully represent the narrow interests of developers or support the political agenda of one party or another. I trust in the wisdom of the Estonian people — that we will not be used in an anti-wind crusade against progress, like the Luddites of the distant past.

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