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Nature conservation requires: Renewable energy to cover the energy needs of hundreds of thousands of homes
Enefit Green, which is one of the largest and most diverse renewable energy producers in the Baltics and part of the corporate group of Eesti Energia, produces electricity and heat from wind, sunlight, biomass, water and mixed municipal waste that would otherwise be landfilled.
20 wind farms with 165 wind turbines
Enefit Green's 20 wind farms in Estonia and Lithuania have a total capacity of 398 MW and generate almost a terawatt-hour of electricity per year. 165 wind turbines generate enough energy to supply more than 330,000 average-consumption homes.
If this amount of energy were produced by the power plants in Narva, 940,000 tons of additional CO2 would be emitted, which does not happen thanks to renewable energy production.
Enefit Green's largest wind farm was completed in 2016 in Šilutė, Lithuania, with 24 2.5 MW wind turbines.
Its estimated annual generation capacity is 230 gigawatt-hours, which can cover the electricity needs of more than 76,600 households throughout a year. Estonia's largest wind farm with a total capacity of 48 MW is located in Aulepa, Läänemaa, where 16 wind turbines generate about 80 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year and cover the annual electricity needs of at least 26,600 households.
The development of new wind farms has gained momentum again after a while. Enefit Green has new wind farm projects for both Estonia and Lithuania. However, even wider use of wind energy is somewhat limited by the fact that, due to the random nature of the wind, a stable electricity supply cannot always be guaranteed, which is why the availability of steerable electricity generation capacities is essential.
The consuming public of solar energy is increasing
Solar energy is gaining momentum around the world. Already a year and a half ago, solar energy covered 2.2% of the planet's electricity needs, and expanding its production is also an important part of Enefit Green's ambitious growth plan.
The company currently owns 39 solar parks with a total capacity of 26 MW. Most of them, 20 parks in Poland with a total capacity of 19 MW, were bought by Enefit Green last year.
As solar energy is becoming more and more affordable for consumers, the company is actively developing new solar parks as well as on-site solar-based solutions for customers. For business customers, this means a convenient full service that includes system installation, maintenance and financing.
Waste, biomass, hydropower
Thanks to the waste incineration plant in Iru, large-scale dumping of mixed municipal waste in landfills has ended in Estonia.
The plant can produce heat and electricity from up to 250,000 tons of mixed municipal waste per year and convert it into up to 310,000 megawatt-hours of heat and 134,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, which would be enough to supply a city the size of Paide and its surroundings. The energy value of mixed municipal waste is equivalent to that of oil shale and wood chips.
Enefit Green uses wood industry residues and biomass that is not suitable for the wood and paper industries to produce electricity and heat at its Paide and Valka power plants as well as at its CHP plant in Broceni, Latvia.
The environmental friendliness of biomass and the abundance of local reserves make it a renewable energy resource with great potential for Estonia.
Water-based electricity generation is also environmentally friendly, as it does not emit greenhouse gases.
Although there are no natural conditions for large-scale production of hydropower in Estonia, it is still reasonable to use the available resources.
The theoretical volume of hydropower in Estonia is estimated at up to 30 MW, but in reality 10 MW can be used. The total capacity of the nearly 50 hydropower plants here is currently 9 MW. Enefit Green produces hydropower in Keila-Joa where the plant has a capacity of 365 kW.
How can I become greener myself?
If clean nature is important to you and you are ready to contribute to conserving it, review your current electricity contract and choose Green Energy, thus ensuring that you buy electricity made 100% from renewable sources.
This way you influence the development of electricity production, so that the surrounding environment is better conserved and existing natural resources are used in a more efficient way. Choosing Green Energy is one of the easiest environmentally friendly changes to make in your life!