On Wednesday (December 25), Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo stated that Finnish authorities are investigating an incident of a submarine power cable disruption connecting Finland and Estonia. This is the latest in a series of incidents involving cable and energy pipeline disruptions in the Baltic Sea region.
Finnish operator Fingrid issued a statement on the cable disruption on the Nordpool regulatory website. The statement mentioned that at 10:26 Greenwich Mean Time on Wednesday, the Estlink 2 interconnector experienced an accidental disruption, reducing the available capacity from 1,016 megawatts (MW) to 358 MW.
“Even during the Christmas period, authorities remain vigilant and are investigating the situation,” Orpo posted on social media.
He added that this disruption did not affect Finland’s power supply.
Arto Pahkin, the operations manager at Fingrid, told Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle) that intentional sabotage cannot be ruled out, although such incidents relatively occur frequently.
Pahkin stated in a press release that an investigation has been launched into the incident.
Fingrid mentioned that during the outage, electricity was flowing from Finland to Estonia at a speed of 658 MW.
Estonian power company Elering stated that the cause of the outage is still unclear, but Estonia’s power supply remains secure.
According to reports by the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Pahkin mentioned that Estonia is currently working to acquire electricity from other European countries.
In recent years, the Baltic Sea region has experienced a series of disruptions in power cables, natural gas pipelines, and telecommunication lines. While submarine cables are prone to technical faults and disruptions due to accidents, authorities in the region have remained highly vigilant against potential acts of sabotage.
Last month, two telecommunication cables connecting Sweden and Denmark in the Baltic Sea were severed. Suspicion quickly fell on the Chinese vessel “Yi Peng 3,” as tracking data showed the ship passing through the area where the cables were cut.
Sweden stated on Monday that China had rejected a request from Swedish prosecutors to investigate the ship, and mentioned that the ship has since left the region.
The Chinese bulk carrier “Yi Peng 3” was wanted by Swedish authorities in November for allegedly damaging two submarine cables. Diplomats from Sweden and China continue to communicate regarding this incident, leading the ship to be anchored in the public waters of the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden for over a month.