VILNIUS - Lithuanian Energy, the state-owned power grid, has announced it would launch an electronic trading system by the end of the year to buy and sell kilowatts in Latvia and Estonia.
Lietuvos Energija (Lithuanian Energy) CEO Rymantas Juozaitis told a news conference on March 17 that the electronic system would be the first real step toward creating a common electricity market across the Baltics. "This will mark the complete opening of our market to Latvia and Estonia. However, our markets are relatively small. This market will be fully functioning when power grid connections with Poland, Sweden and Finland are in place," he said.
Senior managers of Latvia's Latvenergo and Estonia's Eesti Energia, who were also at the news conference, said that they would consider joining the electronic power trade system if invited to do so. For his part, Juozaitis said that Lithuanian Energy would invite the other Baltic countries to join the system.
The Lithuanian electricity market has been fully opened to competition since the start of this year. All legal entities can buy power from any of 17 independent suppliers. In addition, Lithuania is participating in three major power grid connection projects: a 434 million euro power link with Poland, a 400 million euro link between Lithuania and Sweden (SwindLit) and a 110 million euro link between Estonia and Finland (Estlink). The latter project is scheduled for completion in late 2006, which means that Lietuvos Energija will be able to start selling electricity to the Nordic market in 2007.
Meanwhile, a report in the local press accused Lithuania's energy operators of being too slow in integrating with Western markets while the country weans itself off nuclear energy.
The Lietuvos Rytas daily reported on March 18 that the Swedish and Lithuanian grids might only be merged after 2009, following the shutdown of the second (and last) unit of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. Energy officials have been trying to convince Brussels to support the power-bridge to Poland in the European Union's 2007-2013 budget. They warned, however, that the bridge project might be out-of-date as Lithuania would have no electricity to export in 2010.
Juozaitis told the daily that Lithuania was most of all concerned with the Polish project, which has run into delays as the Poles are attempting to expand its scope to include Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Academic Eduardas Vilkas told the paper that "gaining independence from Russia's energy system also requires political decisions," and that energy operators alone could not lay power bridges to the West.
