The Estonian Competition Authority is of the opinion that the interests of all offshore developers must be observed in the construction of an offshore network and equal opportunities for all developers must be ensured.
The plan of the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the Latvian Ministry of Economics to develop an offshore area, for which the Estonian system operator Elering AS and the Latvian system operator AS Augstsprieguma tikls will develop and build the transmission network, has raised market participants’ concerns about equal treatment of all offshore developers, the Competition Authority said.
The authority found that Elering must prepare an investment plan based on the principle that the development of the network must ensure the most favorable opportunity to connect to all potential offshore . Among other things, the connection point to the network must be as close as possible to those connecting.
The network development plan must also be submitted to all interested parties for consultation as soon as possible and the views expressed must be taken into account as much as possible in order to obtain an optimal solution.
The authority found that the optimal solution for the construction of the network must also take into account the objective of minimizing the impact on network tariffs, as the construction of such a network is very costly.