Lithuania has new power bridge partner

VILNIUS - New life has been breathed into the idea of exporting Lithuanian energy across international lines.

Rising from the ashes of the failed Power Bridge Group, an American-led consortium that tried to arrange the construction of a power bridge to western Europe, a new effort is underway to connect the electrical systems between Lithuania and Poland, with the purpose of exporting surplus power to other European countries.

Power will go from Lithuania into Poland and then to other countries such as Germany and Slovakia. Lithuania and Poland will not be in competition with each other.

"Poland supplies to Slovakia. They intend to supply to Germany. It's necessary to improve the transmission line between Poland and Germany," said Jonas Kazlauskas, director of energy development in the Ministry of Economics.

Very few details of the proposals have been hammered out. Representatives from Poland and Lithuania met on Nov. 19 and the Polish side submitted a proposal, but the Lithuanians have yet to give an opinion on it.

"We agreed that it is necessary to continue this work on the development of this project," said Kazlauskas. "We agreed that it is necessary to establish two working groups, one technical, which will discuss technical problems and another working group for discussion of economic and financial matters."

Driving the project is the assumption that Lithuania can produce far more electrical energy than it needs.

"We have maybe three times more power than we need," said Kazlauskas.

Lithuanian power sources have a capacity of approximately 7,000 megawatts of power per month. The maximum amount of power used during a winter month in Lithuania is 2,000 megawatts, Kazlauskas said.

Kazlauskas thinks that the impending closure of Ignalina in 2005 to 2010 should have little impact on this plan. "We have enough capacity for export without Ignalina," he said.

The first attempt to build a power bridge to the west never got off the ground, after the Power Bridge Group, a consortium of American power companies, balked when it came to signing a final contract. "Now it is Poland/Lithuania," said Kazlauskas. "In the future, maybe we will invite or announce a tender, but now there are only two sides."

Sure to inspire confidence in this plan will be an eventual helping hand from Rolandas Paksas, who has taken a new custom-made job working as a personal envoy to President Valdas Adamkus. Adamkus has specifically asked Paksas to take care of the Lithuanian energy sector's integration into the western power system.

However, Paksas' exact duties relating to this project are sketchy at best.

"Mr. Paksas observes how this project works and then gives all the information about it to the president," said Lina Stonciene, assistant to the president's spokesman. The president's office refrused to add further details.

Costs for the project have not yet been projected.