Much has been made of Estonia having a high tech virtual government I’d. So many high tech start ups have come from Estonia, I’m a bit stunned that they have big electricity distribution problems.
i dunno, if you follow the link to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS?end=2024&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=2002" rel="nofollow">https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS?end=2024... you see Estonia has high distribution losses?
> Albania, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Estonia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Venezuela
Even if Estonia does have stated electricity distribution loss, it still looks so way out of place in this group of countries by so many criteria. I wonder why not pick Egypt or Libya given that they have the same distribution loss.
Edit: this could be the reason - when you click on "Map" above the graph, for some reason Estonia is one of the blue countries shown on the map. Argentina, Brazil, and Kenya are there too (but not others).
Interestingly, this page seems to contain data only until year 2014, but the graph next to Estonia in the grandparent link does show an increase on the right side. Maybe Estonia did indeed experience some changes in overall distribution loss in recent years?
Up from about 6% in 2015-2020 according to the World Bank: <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS?locations=EE" rel="nofollow">https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS?location...
But at 2.9% according to Eesti's electricity supplier: <a href="https://www.elering.ee/en/electricity-consumption-and-generation" rel="nofollow">https://www.elering.ee/en/electricity-consumption-and-genera...
"In 2024, losses accounted for 2.9% of the total amount of electricity supplied to the transmission system." What does it all mean, who knows.
Elering reports only their part, the very high voltage transmission losses. Then there are the distribution losses on the local level are they're about 4%.
The article also says Brazil's "problems look like Delhi’s 25 years ago", which is very incorrect from what they're describing. Almost none of what is described in the article happened in Brazil 20 years ago, let alone today. Energy theft, for instance, happens here but at a minuscule scale compared to what's on the article.
I also doubt Estonia has any of these issues whatsoever, like energy theft.
It really seems like a vibecoded article with numbers informing incorrect conclusions. Perhaps with a dash of nationalistic pride. Unfortunate from IEEE.
I did query ChatGPT and it seemingly wrong headedly suggested that Estonia had closed lots of Oil Shale power which it did have, I am not too up on this.
I did push back hard saying that that's not the same as what the article talked about at all.
The thing is if the World Bank is making statistics people are basing decisions on this is an issue.
zeristor · · focus · HN ↗
Much has been made of Estonia having a high tech virtual government I’d. So many high tech start ups have come from Estonia, I’m a bit stunned that they have big electricity distribution problems.
skeletal88 · · focus · HN ↗
We do not have issues with electricity here or planned power cuts or whatever else.
I would like to see where this professor got his data for losses from. Maybe his data is flawed.
croisillon · · focus · HN ↗
rpozarickij · · focus · HN ↗
Even if Estonia does have stated electricity distribution loss, it still looks so way out of place in this group of countries by so many criteria. I wonder why not pick Egypt or Libya given that they have the same distribution loss.
Edit: this could be the reason - when you click on "Map" above the graph, for some reason Estonia is one of the blue countries shown on the map. Argentina, Brazil, and Kenya are there too (but not others).
skeletal88 · · focus · HN ↗
'kaod' is losses, this table shows losses from bruto production.
Either someone has been sending wrong data to the world bank or there is some issue with interpreting them before importing to world bank.
rpozarickij · · focus · HN ↗
card_zero · · focus · HN ↗
But at 2.9% according to Eesti's electricity supplier: <a href="https://www.elering.ee/en/electricity-consumption-and-generation" rel="nofollow">https://www.elering.ee/en/electricity-consumption-and-genera...
"In 2024, losses accounted for 2.9% of the total amount of electricity supplied to the transmission system." What does it all mean, who knows.
lrasinen · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.ceer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/3rd-CEER-Report-on-Power-Losses.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ceer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/3rd-CEER-Repo...
dlisboa · · focus · HN ↗
I also doubt Estonia has any of these issues whatsoever, like energy theft.
It really seems like a vibecoded article with numbers informing incorrect conclusions. Perhaps with a dash of nationalistic pride. Unfortunate from IEEE.
zeristor · · focus · HN ↗
I did push back hard saying that that's not the same as what the article talked about at all.
The thing is if the World Bank is making statistics people are basing decisions on this is an issue.
"Oh, you sweet summer child"
skeletal88 · · focus · HN ↗
The existing ones are used only when electricity prices are veey high.