A quarter of a century after breaking free from the Soviet Union, the Baltic states are finally getting rid of their electricity dependence too.
One of two new cables costing 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), connecting Lithuania to Poland, started on December 9. Commercial flows on the second link from Lithuania to Sweden, big enough to eliminate the Baltic nation’s Russian imports, had been also poised to start commercial operations on December 9, before tests were suspended after the fire next to a Swedish converter station.
After last year opening eastern Europe’s first liquefied natural gas import terminal to end Russia’s monopoly on fuel supplies, the two cables are a second step toward energy independence, according to Lithuania’s Energy Minister Rokas Masiulis. Russian imports met almost half of the nation’s demand in the last quarter, grid data show.
“The fear of the Russian factor will be eliminated just as the fear of the Russian gas factor was eliminated with the start of the LNG terminal,” Masiulis said Dec. 3 in a phone interview. “We can now buy electricity from Poland, from Sweden, from Russia or Latvia or Estonia, all depends on the price.”
Expanding capacity to Lithuania is central to energy independence for the region because the nation has the main link to Belarus and on to Russia. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia’s joint power deficit exceeded 25 percent of the region’s demand last year. Half of that was covered by imports via Lithuania.
The integration means Russia will have to invest billions of dollars to modify its grid to ensure supplies to its exclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania, President Vladimir Putin said in a September interview for PBS. The Russian Energy Ministry’s press service declined to comment on the spending needed if the Baltic and European Union power grids were completely integrated.
Lithuania has been forced to import almost three quarters of its electricity since closing the Ignalina nuclear plant in 2009.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia plan to build at least one more cable to the rest of the EU to become a full part of the European network rather than just connected to it, according to Masiulis.
