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Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a Baltic country in northeastern Europe bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Russia and Lake Peipus. In addition to the mainland, Estonia’s territory consists of the large islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, as well as more than 2000 islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.

Source: [1,2,3,4,5]
 

Aerial view of Tallinn city. Envato. N5UDZX64C9

According to 2023 statistics, Estonia, which ranks 132nd in the world in terms of the size of its territory, is home to around 1,3 million people. In terms of population density, the country occupies the 193rd place in the world. The length of the country’s coastline is 3,794 km. Estonia is a parliamentary republic divided into 15 urban municipalities and 64 rural municipalities. The capital and most densely populated area is Tallinn, the official language is Estonian.
The rating positions of Estonia relative to other countries have been determined for an extensive list of economic, energy, innovative and educational indices, as well as for metrics reflecting the state of the environment. The economic indices include, for example, GDP per capita, annual average GDP growth, high-technology exports, and others. The list of energy indices includes proven reserves of oil, gas and coal, production-consumption ratio combined, and energy use, etc. Each of the indices has a ranked list of included member countries. Since the number of countries in each rating is different for each index, the positioning of the country of interest is displayed on a special chart, where the vertical axis is a uniform relative scale from 0 to 1, whereas the horizontal axis denominates the various indices and respective numbers relating to the descriptions given underneath.
Thus, in such a relative “0-1” diagram, the country’s position is marked with a dot in proportion to its location in the original rating list. If the country is among the leaders regarding the selected indicator, it will be marked close to 1 in the upper green zone on the relevant chart “0-1”, if the country is an outsider in the rating list, then it will be marked in the lower red zone of the chart “0-1”, etc.
Ranking position of Estonia for list of economic indices:

Estonia does not have significant reserves of conventional oil or natural gas. The country‘s most important mineral resource is oil shale, of which Estonia is one of the world‘s producers. According to the World Energy Council [6], Estonian oil shale deposits are evaluated at 16 286 million barrels. Oil shale in the country is used to produce electricity and shale oil.

Table 1. Fossil energy resources of Estonia

 *in-place resources

Estonia has favorable conditions for the development of renewable energy, particular the wind power. In a number of regions of the country, especially on the coast, wind speed reaches 6.5 m/s at a height of 50 m. In contrast, the country does not have the most favorable climatic environment for solar energy development. The highest solar GHI reaches 3 kWh/m2 per day on Saaremaa Island and some other islands.

KUUSIKU. ESTONIA
Latitüde: 58.97 Longitude: 24.73
Average speed: 2.80 m/s Operational share: 52%

Average daily wind speed for 10 years of observations, m/s, 10 m above the ground

Source: based on NOAA U.S. Department of Commerce
Detailed information: Interactive map of wind resources

KUUSIKU. ESTONIA
Latitüde: 58.97 Longitude: 24.73

Average daily sky coverage over 10 years of observations, %

CLR - clear, SCT - scattered from 1/8 TO 4/8, BKN - broken from 5/8 TO 7/8, OVC - overcast, OBS - obscured, POB - partial obscuration

Source: based on NOAA U.S. Department of Commerce
Detailed information: Interactive map of solar resources

Estonia has quite a lot of water resources. The longest river, the Pärnu, stretches for about 145 km. Although hydroelectricity generation in the country currently accounts for less than 1% of the country's total energy production, hydro resources can play an important role in Estonia's efforts to transition to a more sustainable and diversified energy system.

Table 2. Renewable energy resources of Estonia

 *for the majority of the territory of the country
**gross theoretical capability

Almost 80% of the country’s territory is covered by agricultural and forest areas. Industrial waste from these areas provides a sufficient resource base for the development of various bioenergy technologies. Bioenergy is mainly produced from biomass from domestic forests and plays a key role in reducing the use of fossil fuels.

As can be seen from the above graph, until 2018 Estonia was self-sufficient in electricity and almost 90% of it was generated by petroleum and gas derived from oil shale. In 2019, electricity generation from oil shale fell sharply and Estonia turned from an exporter to an importer of electricity.
The drop in oil shale generation was partially but not sufficiently compensated by the increase in power production from bioenergy, wind and solar PV.
The chart of Estonia's energy indices is presented in the figure below.

Estonia's fossil fuel infrastructure, which is dominated by oil shale, is shown on the map below. Oil shale mining and related processes and activities, such as liquefaction and electricity production, take place in Ida-Viru County, located in the north-east of Estonia along the border with the Russian Federation.

Figure 5. Basic infrastructure facilities of the fossil fuel sector in Estonia

According to the Energy Information Administration, the share of fossil fuels in electricity generation in 2022 was 63.5%, followed by other renewables (36.3%) and hydroelectricity (0.2%). When looking at electricity generation from renewable sources, bioenergy leads the way (61.5%), ahead of wind power (25.4%), solar photovoltaics (12.3%) and hydroelectricity (0.8%).

Port of Sillamäe at night. Estonia. Credit – K.Kravik

The Linnamäe power station situated in the lower stretch of the Jägala River on the north of the country is the most powerful hydro-electric power station in Estonia.

Figure 6. Electricity production in Estonia

According to Statistics Estonia, the amount of electricity produced from oil shale increased by 42% in 2022. Estonia was forced to return to producing electricity from oil shale in an attempt to reduce the supply of natural gas from Russia due to the latter's attack on Ukraine [15]. Despite this, the government intends to end the use of oil shale for electricity generation by 2035 and eliminate the use of solid fossil fuels throughout the energy sector by 2040 [16].

Figure 7. Renewable energy in Estonia

Renewable energy accounted for 36.5% of total electricity production in 2022. More than half (52%) of renewable energy was generated from wood. Bioenergy plays a very important role in the energy system of the country. Estonia has a well-developed infrastructure for biofuel production, in particular many wood pellet production plants, which are spread all over the country.
The largest growth (68%) in renewable energy production was in solar energy, which accounted for 20% of total renewable energy production in 2022 [15].
As part of the transition to 100% renewable electricity, further intensive development of solar energy is planned. Construction of one of the largest solar projects in Estonia, the 45 MW Raba solar power plant, has started in Pärnu County and will be completed in 2024 [17].
According to the Estonian Wind Energy Association, the overall capacity of Estonian wind farms is 320 MW and the total electricity generation in 2021 was 730 GWh. The Aulepa wind farm in Laehan County, with a total capacity of 48 MW, is the largest wind farm, generating about 80 gigawatt-hours of electricity to power about 26,600 conventional homes for one year [18].

[1] List of sovereign states and dependencies by area / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_area
[2] List of countries and dependencies by population density / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density
[3] Estonia / The world factbook / Library / Central Intelligence Agency / www.cia.gov
[4] GDP, PPP (constant 2011 international $) / World Bank, International Comparison Program database. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[5] GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) / World Bank, International Comparison Program database. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[6] 2010 Survey of Energy Resources (PDF) / 2010 / Uploads / World Energy Council / https://www.worldenergy.org/
[7] Solar resource data obtained from the Global Solar Atlas, owned by the World Bank Group and provided by Solargis / Global Solar Atlas / globalsolaratlas.info
[8] Wind Map / Global Wind Atlas 2.0, a free, web-based application developed, owned and operated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in partnership with the World Bank Group, utilizing data provided by Vortex, with funding provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). For additional information: globalwindatlas.info
[9] Agricultural land (% of land area) /Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[10] Forest area (% of land area) /Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[11] Hydro (PDF) / World Energy Council / https://www.worldenergy.org/
[12] Municipal waste statistics Updated /  Statistics Explained / Eurostat / https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Municipal_waste_statistics
[13] International Energy Statistic / Geography / U.S. Energy Information Administration / www.eia.gov/beta/international/
[14] BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020-2022 (PDF) / BP / www.bp.com
[15] Statistics Estonia / https://www.stat.ee/en/news/oil-shale-electricity-production-increased-last-year
[16] Governance agreement for 2021–2023 / https://valitsus.ee/en/governance-agreement-2021-2023
[17] Sunly x Metsagrupp building one of the largest solar parks in Estonia / https://sunly.ee/sunly-x-metsagrupp-building-one-of-the-largest-solar-parks-in-estonia/
[18] Eesti Tuuleenergia Assotsiatsioon / https://tuuleenergia.ee/?lang=en

The sources of charts and curves are specified under the images.

For more information about the energy industry in Estonia see here