TALLINN, 15 January 2025 – The National Audit Office found that despite the changed security situation, clear requirements for ensuring physical protection have only been established for one object that is important for Estonia’s electricity supply. The requirements derive from the status of a national defence object and are laid down in its protection procedure.
There are no specific physical security requirements for objects not designated as national defence objects. For years, electricity companies have had to decide for themselves, which physical protection measures are appropriate, and this is also the case now. Elementary measures have been taken, but some of them have been weaker compared to the requirements set for national defence objects. However, these objects are also important to ensure Estonia’s electricity supply.
As a result of the audit, the National Audit Office made several recommendations to the Minister of Climate and the Minister of the Interior, for example, it proposed a comprehensive assessment of the need to designate objects that supply electricity as national defence objects. The designation of an object supplying electricity as a permanent national defence object should start with the Ministry of Climate, whose task is to collect information from the providers of vital services on the objects essential for the provision of the service, analyse the information received and make proposals to the Ministry of the Interior, which decides on the need for designation as a permanent national defence object. However, the decision on designation as a national defence object is made by the Government of the Republic.
The ministries concerned – the Ministry of Climate (until mid-2023, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications was responsible for the area of electricity supply) and the Ministry of the Interior – have not seen the need to update the list of national defence objects related to electricity supply as a vital service since 2017, when this one object important for electricity supply was granted the status of national defence object.
During the audit, the Ministry of the Interior was unable to explain why it was not decided to designate any other objects as national defence objects at the time, even though there were other equivalent objects according to the evaluation methodology. The officials who dealt with the matter at the time no longer work in the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry has no documents related to the decision-making process at the time.
However, in the opinion of the National Audit Office, it is not essential to designate these objects as national defence objects to ensure that the companies providing electricity supply in Estonia themselves apply principles similar to those applied to national defence objects. The National Audit Office did recommend, however, that the Ministry of Climate should collect and share with electricity companies substantive information on the threats of physical attacks as well as measures to counter possible attacks. This way, companies could use this information to select and implement appropriate measures to protect a particular object.
The Minister of Climate and the Minister of the Interior responded that a review and update of the list of national defence objects is planned for 2025. They also pointed out that electricity companies can apply principles like those applied to national defence objects also to critical objects that have not been designated as national defence objects.
The National Audit Office emphasises that since the minimum measures of physical protection and additional security measures for national defence objects are not public information, the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Climate should first find ways to introduce these measures to electricity companies and, if necessary, advise them on their implementation.
In the course of the audit, the National Audit Office assessed how the transmission system operator AS Elering, the distribution system operator Elektrilevi OÜ and the electricity producer AS Enefit Power have prepared for physical attacks against important objects supplying electricity. The audit sample of the National Audit Office included five objects (in reality, there are more such objects) one of which, the object of AS Elering, has been designated as a national defence object related to the provision of a vital service and four have been designated by the electricity undertakings themselves as objects necessary for critical activities in their business continuity risk analyses.
Background
The National Audit Office audited whether measures have been taken to ensure the security of important objects supplying electricity to Estonia. An interruption in electricity supply has a very significant impact on the functioning of the state, other vital services and the population. It is therefore important that the physical security of significant objects that supply electricity is guaranteed. The audit addressed external physical attacks, such as vandalism, theft, the transformation of a demonstration into a mass disorganised attack, lone wolf attack, planned attack (sudden attack, explosive device detonation, etc.), dangerous package (letter, parcel, etc.), attack through ventilation, attack by special forces or persons with military training.
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The full text of the report is subject to the five-year access restriction of ‘internal use only’ pursuant to clauses 35 (1) 61 and 181 of the Public Information Act. Only a summary of the report is available for public use from 15 January 2025 (subsection 48 (2) of the National Audit Office Act).
Toomas Mattson
Advisor at National Audit Office
+372 513 4900
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Posted:
1/15/2025 9:25 AM
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Last Update:
1/15/2025 10:56 AM
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Last Review:
1/15/2025 10:56 AM