"Over the weekend, insulation measurements were carried out on segments of the EstLink 2 cable on both the Estonian and Finnish sides. At the beginning of the week, cable manufacturer Nexans began physical work in the Gulf of Finland from the vessel Deep Cygnus. Construction of the first repair joint is currently underway," Elering spokesperson Kätlin Klemmer told ERR on Thursday.

The company announced in April that preparatory work to repair the damaged section of the subsea cable had taken place from February to April. During these preparations, the damaged portion of the cable was lifted from the sea and cut out. The remaining cable was tested to ensure it was in working condition. The goal of the preparatory phase was to minimize risks associated with the repair work starting in May and to fine-tune the technical details.

According to Klemmer, the preparatory work proceeded as planned.

The repair will involve replacing the damaged section with a new subsea cable to be installed along approximately one kilometer of the seabed. The repairs will utilize previously manufactured and delivered spare cable and repair joints.

According to Elering, the estimated cost of the EstLink 2 repair is €50-60 million, to be split equally between Elering and Finland's system operator Fingrid. Both operators had previously told ERR that the cost of the repairs would be comparable to the last EstLink 2 outage, which totaled over €30 million.

The increased cost this time is due to the decision to use a general-purpose construction vessel owned by a third party — rather than a specialized cable-laying ship — in order to speed up the process. The vessel had to be specially adapted for the specific requirements of the EstLink 2 cable. Using the typical repair vessel would have pushed the work back to the end of the year, Klemmer explained.

Elering will fund its share of the cost using the congestion fee, which is intended to support the maintenance and expansion of cross-border transmission capacity.

According to Elering's spokesperson, the electricity connection will return to the market's disposal in mid-July, following the completion of repairs and successful testing.

The 650-megawatt EstLink 2 interconnector suffered a failure on December 25 last year, when it was damaged by a ship's anchor. EstLink 2 also experienced a prolonged outage last year, remaining offline for more than seven months.

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