Enefit Green lays cornerstone for a new renewable era

On 6 July 2022, Enefit Green laid the cornerstone for Purtse Wind Farm, near Lüganuse parish some 140 kilometres east of Tallinn in Estonia. The company is also building its largest solar park (32 MW) next to the wind farm using the same infrastructure and grid, making it the first large-scale wind and solar hybrid farm in Estonia.

“This is the first utility-scale wind farm in Estonia in eight years, so I hope this is a new start for wind and renewable growth in Estonia,” Aavo Kärmäs, CEO of Enefit Green, told NIB on the sideline of the cornerstone laying event.

The Purtse Wind Farm will consist of five windmills from Danish manufacturer Vestas, with a total capacity of 21 MW. The annual production of the wind and solar farm is expected to be 78 GWh, covering the annual electricity consumption of approximately 24,000 average households.

Enefit Green purchased the development project for Purtse Wind Farm from Estonian wind farm developer Raunistal in March 2021 and made the final investment decision to start construction in January this year. The total cost of the Purtse Wind Farm is approximately EUR 30 million. The wind farm is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2023.

NIB is part of financing new wind power generation capacity in Lithuania and Estonia with a loan of EUR 80 million signed with Enefit Green in January 2022. The 12-year loan will also co-finance two of Enefit Green’s wind farms in Lithuania, with total estimated investment costs of EUR 145 million. The two wind farms, Silale II (43 MW) and Akmene (75 MW), are planned to be completed in the first and third quarter of 2023, respectively.

“Investing in renewable energy is capital intensive and the current energy transformation is so massive that I think NIB, together with EBRD and EIB, has a huge role to play in providing long-term and reasonable priced financing,” says Veiko Räim, Chief Financial Officer of Enefit Green.

Kersti Talving, Senior Client Executive at NIB, says the financing process has been straight-forward. “Our loan is complimentary to local commercial banks and is part of the first larger financing to any energy project in Estonia during the last ten years, so we hope to be able do more going forward,” says Talving.

Enefit Green is a subsidiary consolidating all renewable energy production units owned by the state-owned Eesti Energia group. In October 2021, Eesti Energia listed 23% of Enefit Green’s shares on the Nasdaq Tallinn Stock Exchange.