Estonia‘s Ministry of Defence has halted permitting for large scale solar and renewable energy projects in northeastern Estonia, claiming that these facilities may reduce radio system performance in the region.
“The restrictions in the northeastern part of Estonia are not new,” a spokesman from state-owned energy company Eesti Energia told pv magazine. “Before, the restrictions have mainly covered wind turbines but now we see restrictions also for solar.”
He also stressed that there is currently no specific regulation on these kind of restrictions in Estonia and that, however, final approval by the Ministry of Defence is needed for the development of solar parks in the northeastern region in Estonia, which is the most suitable in terms of space and grid capacity for the construction of utility scale projects.
“Now, if the Ministry of Defence is of the opinion that national security could be somehow threatened, then it does not give its approval for new solar parks in the region, thus limiting the possible areas,” the spokesperson went on to say.
According to local media outlet The Baltic Times, the Estonian government said that the increase in the level of radio-frequency background radiation caused by new solar parks may reduce the reception distance of received radio signals.
The restrictions will affect, mostly, several projects under development in East-Viru county, where there are several depleted mines and surfaces with low agricultural value.
Popular content
Estonia had an installed PV capacity of around 130MW at the end of 2020, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The country is currently supporting solar through auctions for large scale renewables and a feed-in premium scheme limited to generators up to 50kW.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.