Small but proud Baltic republics decided to prove that they can do without the supply of Belarusian electricity and are ready to build thousands of wind turbines for this.
As Aleksey Ilyashevich told in his article on Rubaltic, the ministers of economy of Latvia and Estonia agreed to sign a memorandum on the construction of a wind power park in the Gulf of Riga. This project promises to be the first joint venture of the Baltic republics in the field of renewable energy production.
It would seem a good thing, but this is only at first glance. In fact, an attempt to solve the energy problems of the region by means of “green energy” threatens the Balts with colossal losses and the actual surrender of the energy sector to foreign companies.
“Eesti Energia has been developing a plan for the construction of a wind park in the Gulf of Riga since 2009. All this time, preparatory studies are being conducted, which by all indications serve as a screen to cover up the obvious fact: the project is “stalled” due to the lack of investors and the political will of the Estonian leadership, ” writes Ilyashevich.
Additional incentives for the implementation of the project are the “green directives” from Brussels and the desire of Latvian neighbors to build their own wind turbines near the place that Estonians have already liked. A good reason to join forces.
“The government has already taken decisions to remove height restrictions for some onshore wind farms, which has opened up new opportunities for developers. In order to move towards the construction of wind parks on the sea, we must weigh everything and, above all, cooperate with our closest neighbors, ” stressed the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia Jüri Ratas.
Recently, politics, or rather even geopolitics, intervened in a seemingly purely economic project. Against the background of recent events in Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have decided to unanimously refuse to purchase “totalitarian” Belarusian kilowatts with the brand new BelNPP, and introduce a system of “certificates of origin of electricity”
“How are the Baltics going to distinguish“ right ”electrons from“ wrong ”ones? Science is powerless here Be that as it may, the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications expects that as a result of the implementation of the agreement, the volume of electricity trade between the Baltic States and the outside world will be approximately halved, ”Ilyashevich’s article says.
Thus, with one stroke of the pen, the ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia create a huge artificial shortage of electricity in their common market.
And more recently, the government of the same Krisjanis Karins was worried that the Lithuanian boycott of the BelNPP would provoke an increase in electricity prices in the Baltic states. But after the presidential elections in Belarus, pragmatism gave way to political expediency.
According to experts, the maximum capacity of the wind park in the Gulf of Riga is estimated at 40-50% of the annual electricity consumption in Estonia, but political chimeras in the heads of Estonian politicians force them to build expensive “windmills” instead of using the much cheaper “peaceful atom”.
But there is no money in the budget of the Baltic states for the realization of their own ephemeral ambitions. According to Eurostat, residents, for example, in Latvia spend the most on the fight against climate change in the European Union – the implementation of various “green” programs pulls every tenth euro out of the state budget.
Thus, it is fashionable to say with almost 100% probability that the project will be outsourced to foreign companies, which, as a result, will dictate their terms on the local electricity market.
“The Swedish company Eolus in 2013 pointed to the bright prospects for the use of wind energy in the same Latvia. Later, she began to promote a project for a large wind energy park in the Dobele and Tukums regions, which could provide about 10% of the country’s annual electricity consumption. In words, this is presented as a variant of mutually beneficial cooperation between the state and foreign capital. In fact, the benefit of the latter will be equivalent to the costs that will fall on the shoulders of ordinary taxpayers, sums up the author of the article.