The Baltic states are pitching their renewable surplus to AI data centres just as Denmark and Finland ration large-load connections, but that pitch rests on an annual figure a flat 24/7 load never sees. Baltic grid operators have a short window to set their connection rules before their queues start to look like their neighbours’.
Risti sets the template
Risti Kampus in western Estonia is the most advanced project. On 16 September, Oslo-listed Magnora Data Center ASA agreed to buy a 50% stake from Sunly, the Tallinn-based renewables developer. Phase one is 180 MW, which is exactly the capacity the companies say the local substation has free today. Going to 400 MW depends on substation upgrades. Sunly puts the total investment at around €1.7bn.
The design is what matters. The campus connects both to the transmission grid and directly to Sunly’s adjacent hybrid park, which has 244 MWp of solar, 144 MW of battery storage and 44 MW of wind in development. “A large consumer like a data center ties all of this into a single system,” said Priit Lepasepp, Sunly’s CEO. Magnora chairman Erik Sneve said the partners “expect time-efficient project development”.
There is a real gap in the market. Kaarel Aus, energy hub development lead at Sunly, said earlier this year that no data centre in the Baltics runs or trains AI models, so the region’s AI workloads are processed abroad.
The surplus case
On paper the numbers are compelling. Litgrid puts Lithuania’s installed wind and solar capacity at almost 6 GW, against a peak demand commonly cited at around 2 GW. Latvia historically produced about two-thirds of the power it used. AST reports that in the first half of 2026 domestic generation exceeded consumption by 7%.
Governments are competing on price:
- Latvia: its investment agency offers new data centres grid tariff discounts for their first five years, 80% for connections up to 25 MW and 90% above that.
- Lithuania: Invest Lithuania is marketing 200 MW of near-term power at the Kruonis Technology Park, and Litgrid has published a consumption capacity map aimed at data centres, electrolysers and industry.
- Lithuanian permits: the Seimas amendments adopted on 24 September let developers convert stalled generation permits into storage or consumption projects, data centres included.
What the Nordics learned late
Finland and Denmark show where an unmanaged queue ends up.
Finland. Fingrid reports around 5 GW of signed connection agreements, much of it for data centres. The government has proposed scrapping first-come, first-served connections from 1 January 2027 in favour of four priority groups. Data centres above 10 MW would rank behind smaller consumers, and projects that bring local, firm supply would move up the list. Separately, Fingrid wants data centres to be able to shed 30% of their consumption during grid faults or shortages.
Denmark. It is further down the same road. Media reports say Energinet has paused new large-scale connection agreements after receiving roughly 60 GW of requests, against a national peak of around 7 GW.
Buyers. They have already adjusted. Rystad Energy says data centres have overtaken industry as Finland’s largest buyers of power, and their offtake is shifting from renewable volume to baseload supply. Google’s 507 MW, 22-year nuclear PPA with Fortum at Loviisa is the clearest sign of what large buyers now want.
The mistake: reading annual surplus as firm capacity
This is where the Baltic pitch is weakest: the surplus is seasonal, while data centre load is flat.
Estonia set a consumption record of 1,723 MW on 5 February 2026, when domestic generation was running at around 850 MW. Eesti Energia CEO Andrus Durejko welcomes data centres because they absorb the summer surplus. He also warned that “it will make things more difficult in winter, meaning the energy deficit will deepen.”
Co-location narrows that gap but does not close it. Against a flat 180 MW load, Risti’s hybrid park brings 44 MW of wind, and its solar contributes nothing on a February evening. Through a long spell of low wind, the balance has to come from the grid and from imports. Estonia’s firm generation fleet is also shrinking: Elering says most of the country’s power plants reach the end of their operating lives by 2035.
If buyers now want baseload supply in Finland, figures showing an annual export surplus will not win them in Tallinn or Vilnius.
Rules to set while queues are short
Baltic operators can adopt the Nordic fixes before they need them:
- Demand flexibility: make it mandatory for large loads, on the lines of Fingrid’s 30% proposal.
- Connection priority: tie it to firm or co-located supply, as Finland’s draft rules do.
- Connection pricing: set it to filter out speculative applications early.
Copenhagen and Helsinki are writing these rules after requests outran capacity. The Baltic states can still do it the other way round.
