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Eesti Energia is building a solar power plant for Valmeco, a wooden houses manufacturer located in Jõgeva. The plant will cover nearly a third of the company's annual electricity demand. In addition, such a solution will help Valmeco to mitigate the risk of electricity market price growth, since the fixed-price contract has been concluded for a long period of time.

According to Margus Potisepp, the Project Manager of Eesti Energia Solar Energy Solutions, the solution offered to Valmeco is beneficial for a customer, as the customer does not need to invest anything in the launch of an environmental-friendly electricity production. "Also, the price of solar electricity produced will be lower for the customer than the electricity purchased from the network, since grid fee shall not be added to the solar electricity," Potisepp said.

After the completion of the solar power plant, it will be owned by Eesti Energia's renewable energy company Enefit Green, whose task is to keep the power plant in operation throughout the whole contract period. "Thus, the customer can focus on his or her own activities, and Enefit Green makes the work we are good at," Aavo Kärmas, the Head of Enefit Green, said. He added that the solar power plant being built for Valmeco is another good example of how a company located away from large centers has launched an environmentally-friendly and innovative power generation solution.

Raul Taul, the Head of Valmeco, said that the solution offered by Eesti Energia suits his company well. "It's beneficial both for my company and Eesti Energia, as well as for the third party – the nature," Taul said. Raul Taul added that since they had enough space for building a solar power plant, and other conditions were also reasonable, a decision to make production greener was rational.

Valmeco which activities started at 1991, has been adding value to and trading timber in Jõgeva for more than 25 years. The company is mainly focused on manufacturing prefabricated wooden constructions such as saunas, cottages, houses, and on producing elements for them. According to Raul Taul, the company hopes to continue offering people solutions that make their lives more simple and convenient.

A total of 1440 solar panels taking the area of 8,000 square meters will be installed to the Valmeco territory by Eesti Energia. The solar power plant system will have a capacity of 475 kW that will cover nearly a third of Valmeco's annual electricity demand. The solar power plant will be completed this autumn.

The complete service solution is suitable for those business clients, whose annual electricity consumption is more than 500 MWh and who own free roof or ground space of over 2000 m2. Eesti Energia also offers its clients an opportunity to purchase the solar power station from Eesti Energia in “turnkey” principle. In case of “turnkey” solution, Eesti Energia will help the company find a suitable technical solution, obtain the necessary equipment, deal with the installation of the solution and preparations preceding it.

The first complete service solution was set up at the end of the last year for dairy farm Estonia located in Järvamaa, where Eesti Energia will be supplying the company with solar electricity for the next 25 years. Similar contracts for solar electricity have been concluded with 8 customers all over Estonia.

Decentralized power industry is a rapidly growing global trend, which complements the existing central electricity production with local production units near the place of consumption. The goal of establishing solar power generation stations located by the client is to increase the share of local electricity production in Eesti Energia’s production portfolio. The strategic goal of Eesti Energia is to produce 40% of electricity from renewable and alternative sources by 2022.