Google’s €13bn investment in large data centres in Finland could push Estonian electricity prices higher by reducing the amount of cheap Finnish power available for export, Estonia's public broadcaster ERR reported on September 11.
Estonia has imported around 40% of its electricity from Finland and other Nordic countries in recent years. Rising Finnish consumption could therefore feed into Estonian prices, although additional demand is also expected to encourage investment in new generation.
Google’s energy-intensive data centres will buy electricity equivalent to half the output of Finland’s Loviisa nuclear power plant over the next 22 years.
Tiit Hobejogi, a management board member at Eesti Energia subsidiary Enefit, said Finnish electricity consumption has already risen by around 500 MW compared with 2025. Excluding the coldest winter months, Finnish prices have increased by around €5/MWh over the past year, also affecting Estonia.
“This naturally means that prices there will rise, and if prices rise there, they will also rise for us during periods when we import electricity from Finland. Looking at this year, electricity consumption in Finland has actually increased by around 500 megawatts compared with 2025. There may be several factors behind that, but excluding the coldest winter months, the price in Finland has risen by €5 per megawatt-hour over the past year and that has also had an impact on us,” Hobejogi said, ERR.ee reported.
The potential impact is estimated at around €5/MWh, or 0.5 cents/kWh, if additional demand is not matched by new generation.
Elering CEO Kalle Kilk said the development highlighted Estonia’s dependence on neighbouring electricity markets.
“If consumption increases and supply has not increased by the same amount, that clearly affects both security of supply and prices. We have to take into account that we in Estonia have been quite dependent on the situation in our neighboring countries. The main conclusion for us is that in the future we need to take somewhat greater responsibility ourselves for ensuring that we have enough electricity that can also be generated domestically,” Kilk said, ERR.ee reported.
Additional Finnish wind and other generating capacity could nevertheless limit the longer-term impact on average prices.
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