6 ms·

Cost of electricity in Russia: $0.05 Cost of electricity in Estonia: $0.26 Painful.

snapcaster 2y ago
Wow that's brutal, what's the context for this change? Was Estonia "bullied" into this, is it a popular change? 5xing electricity prices causes so much human suffering hope estonians have good ways of coping
- sixothree 2y ago
  I wouldn't mind some context here. Is 0.05 the price _only_ inside of Russia. Regardless, 0.05 seems extremely cheap to me. I can't think of any places in the states that pay that little. And 0.26 seems pretty darn expensive. I can only think of a few places I have been that charge that much.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    Ah gotcha, so they're not actually paying 0.05 now and they probably won't pay 0.26 in the future?
  - forty 2y ago
    From what I read, there are countries in Europe where it's ~0.40€/kWh (like Germany). Here in France it's ~0.20€/kWh
  - kasey_junk 2y ago
    It doesn’t quote which price that is, which matters for this discussion, but I routinely pay 5c or less for energy generated in the states.
  - napoleongl 2y ago
    If it hadn’t been for Germany being one big area in terms of electricity pricing, all swedens four electricity areas would have been far below that. Now our two southernmost areas are infected by what I understand is southern German prices. https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
  - fmajid 2y ago
    I had to go to Hyderabad, India for a family emergency. Electricity here is on a progressive scale from 1 rupee/kWh up to 9 rupees. 1 rupee is about 1.25 cents. It’s got to be subsidized, just like how water is free.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    The price of electricity in Quebec is CAD0.078 per kWh, which is 5.5 cents US.
- WinstonSmith84 2y ago
  it's not "now", it's 2024 price. "Grid synchronization" doesn't mean, subsidized by Russia, it just meant that Russia provides energy if Estonia didn't produce enough energy, and the other way around (though it likely never happened). It's clear though that Russia was not selling at inland price.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    According to Wikipedia, Estonia did sometimes export energy to Russia. I don't know why this should be surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Estonia
- tterras 2y ago
  Estonian here. All baltic states started discussing it about 20 years ago. It was clear that this had to be done, as after re-independnce there has never been times where russia isn't a direct threat. In 2022 when war in Ukraine started, Baltic states also prepared for possibility that Russia will simply disconnect. Without all infrastructure done yet, it wouldwe been chaos for us for several weeks. Happy that we can finally do this move for our national security.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    That makes a lot of sense, i would also feel very insecure knowing i was in that situation with Russia
kriz9 2y ago
Most of us are happy to suffer if it means not relying on Russia. This is the price of independence.
- cpursley 2y ago
  Doesn't it mean you're now dependent on the US (and our particular politics) as well as the middle eastern oil monarchies? Or is the idea to try to source all of the EU energy needs independently?
  - bluelu 2y ago
    Yes, it is exactly that.
  - fifilura 2y ago
    There are also two cables connecting Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Estonia. https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ As can be seen in the link, both Sweden and Finland currently exports power to Baltics. Both Sweden and recently Finland are European power-houses when it comes to electricity. Sweden always was (despite what everyone complains about here in Sweden). With a healthy mix of hydro, nuclear and recently wind power. And Finland just recently finished a large new nuclear reactor. Also, in many places of the world (e.g. Scandinavia), electricity does not equal Oil.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    Estonia seems to have only 5% or so of electricity from gas, and zero from oil. Latvia has more gas use, maybe 15% over the year. Lithuania around 10% gas. 90% independent isn't too bad. (Data eyeballed from the annual charts on app.electricitymaps.com)
  - arlort 2y ago
    I think you and other in this thread are mixing up a few topics. The grids are being disconnected from russia but that doesn't mean that estonia was dependent on Russia for electricity before that Looking at this https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/est/all/5271600/2022 https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/est/all/... it seems like even before the 2022 war Estonian imports from russia of electricity were close to zero The concern with having the grids connected to Russia rather than the EU is that Russia might exploit this in the future (inducing instability on the grid for instance) so switching to the EU removes that risk As for the US and ME monarchies, this applies more in general to the EU as a whole which depends quite a lot on imports for fossil fuels, but not all dependencies are made equal and at least for now Saudis and Americans haven't been invading countries in our neighborhood so I'd still take them over the Russians The ideal scenario would be reducing as much as possible that dependency which is why there's a bunch of interest in renewables, energy efficiency and nuclear across the continent
flanked-evergl 2y ago
Europeans voted for electricity that expensive, so not sure what the concern is. The government in Germany which shut down local production and decided to outsource it all did not come out of thin air.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- radiospiel 2y ago
  > The government in Germany which shut down local production and decided to outsource it all did not come out of thin air. That is just plain wrong. https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    If not Europeans, who elects the officials in EU that determine energy policy? Also, your graph shows a substantial decrease in domestic energy production. If Germans want cheaper energy their only option is to elect other politicians. It's the same problem in Norway. People vote for politicians who do everything they can to increase the price, and then they whine that inflation is sky high. You get what you vote for in a Democracy.
- toss1 2y ago
  Indeed, it came out of the Merkel government, which was notoriously Russia-appeasing, and while popular at the time, it's reputation is rapidly rotting under the gaze of recent history where Russia assaults Ukraine attempting to eliminate the very concept of Ukraine as an entity and independent people, and threatens all of Europe.
  - wewxjfq 2y ago
    Serious question: What brings people to write these comments? It's so tiresome. Always the same twaddle. Merkel was not notoriously Russia-appeasing, she was notoriously German industry appeasing. She didn't stop a business consortium of several large European energy companies from building a new pipeline to Russia, but neither did any leader of the other European countries involved, nor would have any other German chancellor at the time.
FTDi 2y ago
It is a bit misleading, at least for Lithuania, but I believe for Estonia and Latvia too. First of all Baltic states does not import electricity from Russia/Belarus anyway, for the last 4 years, regardless we are still synchronized with them. So synchronizing would not affect energy price (to be precise it will affect, but it is fraction of euro cent so it is very minor). Other thing is that electricity is in open market, so you can get individual fixed price per individual provider, or you can go for market price changing by hour, if there is technical capacity (smart meter installed).
- cingraa 2y ago
  The Baltic countries do not trade electricity with Russia, hence the big cost gap.
beretguy 2y ago
Less painful than dying because russia invaded your country.
IndrekR 2y ago
2024 average electricity price in Estonia was 0.08727 €/kWh. There was no trading with Russia during this time. This is open data. I have no idea where you get the 0.26USD figure. Source: https://data.nordpoolgroup.com/auction/day-ahead/prices?deliveryDate=latest&currency=EUR&aggregation=YearlyAggregate&deliveryAreas=EE https://data.nordpoolgroup.com/auction/day-ahead/prices?deli...
- drysine 2y ago
  >0.08727 €/kWh That's more than double of what I pay in Russia.

Wow that's brutal, what's the context for this change? Was Estonia "bullied" into this, is it a popular change? 5xing electricity prices causes so much human suffering hope estonians have good ways of coping

sixothree 2y ago
I wouldn't mind some context here. Is 0.05 the price _only_ inside of Russia. Regardless, 0.05 seems extremely cheap to me. I can't think of any places in the states that pay that little. And 0.26 seems pretty darn expensive. I can only think of a few places I have been that charge that much.
- snapcaster 2y ago
  Ah gotcha, so they're not actually paying 0.05 now and they probably won't pay 0.26 in the future?
- forty 2y ago
  From what I read, there are countries in Europe where it's ~0.40€/kWh (like Germany). Here in France it's ~0.20€/kWh
- kasey_junk 2y ago
  It doesn’t quote which price that is, which matters for this discussion, but I routinely pay 5c or less for energy generated in the states.
- napoleongl 2y ago
  If it hadn’t been for Germany being one big area in terms of electricity pricing, all swedens four electricity areas would have been far below that. Now our two southernmost areas are infected by what I understand is southern German prices. https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
- fmajid 2y ago
  I had to go to Hyderabad, India for a family emergency. Electricity here is on a progressive scale from 1 rupee/kWh up to 9 rupees. 1 rupee is about 1.25 cents. It’s got to be subsidized, just like how water is free.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The price of electricity in Quebec is CAD0.078 per kWh, which is 5.5 cents US.
WinstonSmith84 2y ago
it's not "now", it's 2024 price. "Grid synchronization" doesn't mean, subsidized by Russia, it just meant that Russia provides energy if Estonia didn't produce enough energy, and the other way around (though it likely never happened). It's clear though that Russia was not selling at inland price.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  According to Wikipedia, Estonia did sometimes export energy to Russia. I don't know why this should be surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Estonia
tterras 2y ago
Estonian here. All baltic states started discussing it about 20 years ago. It was clear that this had to be done, as after re-independnce there has never been times where russia isn't a direct threat. In 2022 when war in Ukraine started, Baltic states also prepared for possibility that Russia will simply disconnect. Without all infrastructure done yet, it wouldwe been chaos for us for several weeks. Happy that we can finally do this move for our national security.
- snapcaster 2y ago
  That makes a lot of sense, i would also feel very insecure knowing i was in that situation with Russia

kriz9 2y ago

Most of us are happy to suffer if it means not relying on Russia. This is the price of independence.

cpursley 2y ago
Doesn't it mean you're now dependent on the US (and our particular politics) as well as the middle eastern oil monarchies? Or is the idea to try to source all of the EU energy needs independently?
- bluelu 2y ago
  Yes, it is exactly that.
- fifilura 2y ago
  There are also two cables connecting Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Estonia. https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/ As can be seen in the link, both Sweden and Finland currently exports power to Baltics. Both Sweden and recently Finland are European power-houses when it comes to electricity. Sweden always was (despite what everyone complains about here in Sweden). With a healthy mix of hydro, nuclear and recently wind power. And Finland just recently finished a large new nuclear reactor. Also, in many places of the world (e.g. Scandinavia), electricity does not equal Oil.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  Estonia seems to have only 5% or so of electricity from gas, and zero from oil. Latvia has more gas use, maybe 15% over the year. Lithuania around 10% gas. 90% independent isn't too bad. (Data eyeballed from the annual charts on app.electricitymaps.com)
- arlort 2y ago
  I think you and other in this thread are mixing up a few topics. The grids are being disconnected from russia but that doesn't mean that estonia was dependent on Russia for electricity before that Looking at this https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/est/all/5271600/2022 https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/est/all/... it seems like even before the 2022 war Estonian imports from russia of electricity were close to zero The concern with having the grids connected to Russia rather than the EU is that Russia might exploit this in the future (inducing instability on the grid for instance) so switching to the EU removes that risk As for the US and ME monarchies, this applies more in general to the EU as a whole which depends quite a lot on imports for fossil fuels, but not all dependencies are made equal and at least for now Saudis and Americans haven't been invading countries in our neighborhood so I'd still take them over the Russians The ideal scenario would be reducing as much as possible that dependency which is why there's a bunch of interest in renewables, energy efficiency and nuclear across the continent

flanked-evergl 2y ago

Europeans voted for electricity that expensive, so not sure what the concern is. The government in Germany which shut down local production and decided to outsource it all did not come out of thin air.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
radiospiel 2y ago
> The government in Germany which shut down local production and decided to outsource it all did not come out of thin air. That is just plain wrong. https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  If not Europeans, who elects the officials in EU that determine energy policy? Also, your graph shows a substantial decrease in domestic energy production. If Germans want cheaper energy their only option is to elect other politicians. It's the same problem in Norway. People vote for politicians who do everything they can to increase the price, and then they whine that inflation is sky high. You get what you vote for in a Democracy.
toss1 2y ago
Indeed, it came out of the Merkel government, which was notoriously Russia-appeasing, and while popular at the time, it's reputation is rapidly rotting under the gaze of recent history where Russia assaults Ukraine attempting to eliminate the very concept of Ukraine as an entity and independent people, and threatens all of Europe.
- wewxjfq 2y ago
  Serious question: What brings people to write these comments? It's so tiresome. Always the same twaddle. Merkel was not notoriously Russia-appeasing, she was notoriously German industry appeasing. She didn't stop a business consortium of several large European energy companies from building a new pipeline to Russia, but neither did any leader of the other European countries involved, nor would have any other German chancellor at the time.

FTDi 2y ago

It is a bit misleading, at least for Lithuania, but I believe for Estonia and Latvia too. First of all Baltic states does not import electricity from Russia/Belarus anyway, for the last 4 years, regardless we are still synchronized with them. So synchronizing would not affect energy price (to be precise it will affect, but it is fraction of euro cent so it is very minor). Other thing is that electricity is in open market, so you can get individual fixed price per individual provider, or you can go for market price changing by hour, if there is technical capacity (smart meter installed).

cingraa 2y ago
The Baltic countries do not trade electricity with Russia, hence the big cost gap.

beretguy 2y ago

Less painful than dying because russia invaded your country.

IndrekR 2y ago

2024 average electricity price in Estonia was 0.08727 €/kWh. There was no trading with Russia during this time. This is open data. I have no idea where you get the 0.26USD figure. Source: https://data.nordpoolgroup.com/auction/day-ahead/prices?deliveryDate=latest&currency=EUR&aggregation=YearlyAggregate&deliveryAreas=EE https://data.nordpoolgroup.com/auction/day-ahead/prices?deli...

drysine 2y ago
>0.08727 €/kWh That's more than double of what I pay in Russia.