Universal service (Üldteenus)

Universal service (üldteenus) is, per ELTS § 76¹, the right of every Estonian small consumer — household, apartment association, or commercial customer with up to 63 A main fuse on low voltage — to buy electricity at a "reasonable, justified, equal-treatment" price from the network operator that connects them. It is the statutory backstop that replaced the pre-2013 vabatarbija/müügikohustus framework.

When it kicks in

Üldteenus engages by default whenever a small consumer's open-supply contract lapses without a new one in place. The local DSO (most often Elektrilevi) either supplies directly or runs a public procurement to find a retail seller — preferring no affiliated party — and publishes the universal-service supplier on its website. If the procurement fails, the DSO must designate a temporary supplier (§ 76¹(2¹)).

Pricing

Üldteenus pricing is regulated by Konkurentsiamet (the Competition Authority): "reasonable, justified and non-discriminatory." It is intentionally not the cheapest tariff in the market — the design point is that nobody falls off the grid for lack of a contract, not that nobody bothers shopping for a better deal. In practice, customers on üldteenus typically pay 5–15% above what they could get on the open market.

Why it matters

For a retail-flexibility provider like Volton, üldteenus is the safety net that makes the open-market churn machinery safe. A customer can switch open supplier at twenty-one days' notice; if anything goes wrong with the new contract, üldteenus catches them before the meter goes dark. For households, it is the reason "no contract" is impossible in Estonia.