Utilitas increased its production of green electricity by a fifth in a single year

Estonia’s largest renewable energy producer, Utilitas, produced 2.3 TWh of energy in 2022, 69% of which was from renewable sources. The production of green electricity increased by 22% in a year thanks to the addition of two wind farms in Latvia.

“The war that started almost a year ago revealed the pain points of energy security. The energy crisis in Estonia and in Europe will not end simultaneously with Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the energy sector of the entire region needs large investments to strengthen the security of the energy supply. There are no overnight solutions in the energy sector, but some are faster than others. The technology of wind farms has developed continuously in recent years, and favourable wind conditions enable us to add large amounts of inexpensive electricity to the energy portfolio of our region as quickly as possible. For example, we built the largest wind farm in Latvia in one year”, explained Priit Koit, the CEO of Utilitas energy group.

Utilitas Wind became the largest wind energy producer in Latvia in 2022 by acquiring the Grobina wind farm with a capacity of 20MW and by building a modern 59MW wind farm in Tārgale. In the summer of 2022, Utilitas started building their next wind farm, in Estonia, in the Saarde municipality; Pärnu county. The new wind farm, with nine wind turbines, has a total capacity of 39 MW and is scheduled to start operating in the summer of 2023.

The energy crisis further increased interest in district heating as the most efficient urban energy solution and a record number of buildings became clients of Utilitas’ district heating service in 2022. In 2022, 392 buildings across Estonia joined Utilitas’ district heating service with a total consumption of 115 MW, including Adven’s customers in the Tallinn area, a total of 227 buildings. Among new district heating clients, there are freshly completed apartment buildings as well as those that have been converted from other types of heating, as well as commercial and public facilities. Among others, Tallinn Airport, Tallinn University of Technology, Rapla football hall, and the Jõgeva sports hall and health centre joined the district heating system.

Utilitas built and reconstructed nearly 22 kilometres of heating pipelines in 2022. The largest works took place in North Tallinn and Central Tallinn districts, where nearly 7 and 4 kilometres of heating pipes were replaced respectively. In addition, the district cooling industry also developed rapidly: a new cooling station for Ülemiste district was completed, and the construction of the cooling network in the centre of Tallinn began on Jõe-Pronksi streets.

“A challenging year in the energy sector confirmed that in addition to environmental friendliness and efficiency, district heating is the best solution for heating in urban areas in terms of supply security. The district heating system is flexible, as it allows the efficient use of different fuels, which ensures continuity, even if there are supply problems with particular fuels. We already produce most of our heat from renewable fuels and by 2030, at the latest, Utilitas aims to completely transfer its district heating system to local renewable energy sources, which will reduce dependence on imported fuels and keep the price of the service at a more stable level”, said Koit.

Utilitas produced a total of 2,307 GWh of energy in 2022, of which 1,902 GWh was heat and 405 GWh was electricity. More than 2/3 of the energy was produced from renewable sources. The company’s clients consumed 2012 GWh of heat in 2022, which is 6% less than the previous year. The reason for the decrease is the significantly warmer average outdoor temperature during the heating season than in the previous year, as well as the energy savings by clients.