Baltic electricity systems are definitely ready to disconnect from Russia - AJ Power

RIGA - The Baltic electricity systems are definitely ready to disconnect from the Russian unified power grid, or BRELL, and the only concern at the moment is sabotage, Roberts Samtins, chairman of the board of AJ Power, told LETA in an interview.

He said that over the past 15 years, investments in the Baltic region have totaled two billion euros. Investments have been made in strengthening the operation of high-voltage lines, batteries and synchronization equipment. Samtins stressed that physically the Baltic countries are definitely ready to disconnect from BRELL and synchronize with Europe.

"The systems are definitely ready. I think the readiness on our side is very high and everything should go smoothly," Samtins said, adding that the only concern at the moment is related to sabotage from Russia and Belarus, which the Baltics faced only recently when the Estlink2 cable was damaged. "We cannot rule out such events and therefore we have to be prepared for them," explained the AJ Power head.

However, he said that people did not even notice the damage to the Estlink2 cable because the interconnectors have enough capacity and enough electricity generation was also taking place locally in Latvia. The moment the Estlink2 cable stopped working, local power came on to compensate.

"At the same time, additional energy was imported from Russia and Belarus to ensure the stability of the grid. When BRELL is unavailable and all spare capacity has to be provided by the grid itself, the situation will be different and the risks in case of sabotage, accidents or outages will be higher," said Samtins, stressing that he believes that in the future such cases will still not be actually be felt by the population.

However, Samtins also pointed out that residents should not live with a worry that accidents can happen from time to time, but that both the sector and the state need to reinforce their networks and on-site power generation capacities, which is already actively taking place.

AJ Power is a private energy group offering tailor-made solutions for electricity and natural gas procurement, solar panel projects, natural resource tax administration and energy efficiency improvements.