Brussels, 23/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - During a visit to Lithuania, the Commission Vice President for the Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic, promised proposals this summer to identify the best ways for synchronising the electricity grids in Baltic countries and mainland Europe.
Following a meeting with the Lithuanian Prime Minister, Algirdas Butkevicius, in Vilnius on Monday 22 February, Sefcovic stated “Synchronisation is an important issue and we've agreed that we will do our utmost in order for the EU's Joint Research Centre to provide the results this year or more proposals would look like the most economically viable … Experts will do their modelling and planning and should make proposals around summer”.
The Baltic media also quoted the Commissioner as saying that “The synchronisation solution proposed by experts would help continue with the development of this project that was important for energy independence of the Baltic countries… Then we'll have to work on technical and financial aspects and also to communicate with our neighbours, which will be affected by this synchronisation. It is in our common interest to have this complicated task completed by 2025”
The Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are currently part of the BRELL electricity ring linking them with Belarus and Russia.
As part of the interconnection planned for the Baltic Sea region (BEMIP), Lithuania has already established electricity interconnections with Poland (LitpolLink) and Sweden (NordBalt) which, together with these conversion stations, link up its 330 kV station to the Polish and Swedish 400 kV grids.
The 330 kV electricity systems in Baltic countries require higher voltage in the national grids to ensure that they work in a synchronised way with the European electricity grid.
The synchronisation of the Baltic countries' electricity grids with the grid in mainland Europe is not simply a technological question: it would also allow these countries to free themselves from a electricity ring centrally controlled and coordinated by Russia and would make their management more decentralised in a system where European countries are more inclined to coordinate their action. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)