Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia called on the leaders of the European Union to provide funds for the synchronization of power grids with the networks of Western Europe in the new Community budget.
– We must continue our efforts to build transport and energy networks, digital infrastructure and services, but also for interconnections between different regions of the European Union. Including combining transport and energy islands, as well as using the capabilities of our infrastructure – we read in the letter the president of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite, prime ministers of Latvia and Estonia Marisa Kuczinskis and Yuri Ratas to the president of the European Council Donald Tusk.
In their opinion, the long-term financial perspective should ensure stability of implementation of these strategic goals and further synchronization of power systems of the Baltic States with the rest of Europe. The current EU financial perspective ends in 2020.
Synchronization
At the beginning of May 2017, the prime ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland reached a preliminary agreement on synchronization. What is important, the minister of energy of Lithuania spoke about the possibility of signing the memorandum in June. Unfortunately, during the meeting of the Council of the European Union held in June last year, Estonia and Lithuania did not agree on how to synchronize. It is also worth noting that at the beginning of February the vice-president of the European Commission for Energy Union Maroš Šefrovič announced that the synchronization plan should be created by June. Otherwise there is the risk of losing Brussels’ financial support for this purpose.
Earlier, after Latvia and Estonia expressed doubts about the possibility of synchronization using only LitPol Link 1, the operator of the Lithuanian transmission networks proposed building the second branch of this connection after 2025, when the Baltic states’ energy systems separate from the post-Soviet IPS / UPS system.
According to the Joint Research Center operating at the European Commission, the best way to synchronize the power systems of the Baltic States with continental Europe is through two strands of LitPol Link, which is expected to cost 770-960 million euros. In the case of synchronization by one thread, the cost will amount to 900 million euros. The cost of synchronizing the Baltic States with the Scandinavian countries is estimated at 1,36-1,41 billion euros.