Although country is rife with oil shale, following the example of Denmark on the other side of the Baltic Sea the Estonian government has made renewables a priority.

TALLINN — Estonia’s state-owned energy company Eesti Energia announced Thursday that it will build a 9 megawatt wind farm on a former ash field near eastern Estonian border town of Narva.

The construction of 17 power turbines with the cost of €60 million will be conducted by Enercon. The works will start in summer and the wind farm is due to be completed by 2012. The annual electricity output of the whole wind farm is estimated about 90 gwh which is enough to cover the electricity for about 35,000 Estonian families with average electricity consumption.

“It is important for us to use this footprint of the oil shale energy sector as the foundation for renewable energy,” Ando Leppiman, director of Eesti Energia’s renewable energy business unit said in a press release. “For Eesti Energia it will mean doubling the electricity generated from wind compared to the current annual total.”

Eesti Energia will also add three turbines to Aulea wind park in summer 2011, which is currently most powerful wind farm in the country.

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