On Sunday 9 February, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania officially became independent of the electricity systems of Russia and Belarus, joining the continental European network via Poland, which serves more than 400 million customers.
“Today we are making history [...] The power lines with Russia and Belarus are being dismantled. These chains of power lines linking you to hostile neighbours will be a thing of the past”, declared the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a speech given on Energy Independence Day, the official ceremony marking this event in Lithuania, alongside the political leaders of the three Baltic States, Poland and other stakeholders involved in the project.
Accompanied by the Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jørgensen, and the Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, Ms von der Leyen highlighted the start of “a new era” marked by the end of dependence on the Russian IPS/UPS system for frequency management and the withdrawal of Russian fossil fuels.
She also took the opportunity to discuss security issues such as damage to the submarine cables linking the Baltic States to their neighbouring countries, and welcomed NATO’s ‘Baltic Sentry’ initiative, launched last month (see other news).
According to Commissioner Jørgensen, the synchronisation of the Baltic is “not only fundamental to our energy security, it is also fundamental to fulfilling the promises and potential of the Green Deal”, since it will enable more renewable energies to be introduced into energy systems.
He also pointed out that 75% of the investment costs had been covered by the ‘Connecting Europe Facility’, totalling more than €1.2 billion.
The process is the result of years of preparation and collaboration between the transmission system operators of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - Litgrid, Augstsprieguma tīkls and Elering, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSOE) as well as the Polish transmission system operator, PSE, which coordinated the whole process as a direct neighbour of the Baltic States and with a physical connection to continental Europe. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)