Lithuania, Poland to stop trading on LitPolLink power link from 2025
13/05/2021 14:05
By Andrius Sytas
KLAIPEDA, Lithuania, May 13 (Reuters) - Lithuania and Poland
will cease trading on the 500-megawatt (MW) power interconnector
LitPolLink from 2025, when the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian
grids are due to unplug from Russia.
The trade will move to the underwater 700-MW power cable
called Harmony Link, Rokas Masiulis, head of Lithuanian
transmission system operator Litgrid LTG1L.VL , said on
Thursday.
"It was ultimately a technical decision that this is the
safest way, the most stable way for Baltic states to synchronise
their grids with continental Europe", he told Reuters during a
visit to the Lithuanian port city of Klaipeda.
"(LitPolLink) will not be used for trade, but for technical
flows, for supporting the frequency and for other important
things so we can work with Europe, not with Russia", Masiulis,
who was Lithuania's energy minister from 2014-16, said. "We will
have Harmony Link for trading."
The 330-km Harmony Link, due to come online in 2025 and
financed by the European Union to the tune of 493 million euros
($595.84 million), is the largest project in the Baltic States
to switch to the European continental grid. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2GT2NP
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - once ruled from Moscow but
members of the European Union and NATO since 2004 - view being
linked into Russia's power network as a threat to their national
security.
The Russian and Continental European systems both operate at
a frequency of 50 Hertz, but are not synchronized. The Russian
system is run from Moscow, whereas the continental one is
decentralized.
Lithuania imported 557 megawatt-hours (MWh) of power through
LitPolLink in 2020, and exported 2335 MWh to Poland that year,
Litgrid said on its website.
($1 = 0.8274 euros)
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Susan Fenton)
((Andrius.Sytas@thomsonreuters.com; +370 682 74006;))