EC to negotiate with Russia and Belarus over Baltic power system

  • 2012-03-01

BRUSSELS - European Union (EU) foreign ministers have given the European Commission (EC) a mandate to negotiate with Russia and Belarus on a new agreement on the electricity system in the Baltic States. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are currently an "electricity island" within the European Union as their electricity grids are currently part of the Russian UPS IPS system having been built as part of the Soviet system prior to independence in 1991, reports ELTA/LETA.

In September 2011, the EC said it was looking to finalize an agreement between the EU, Russia and Belarus in the coming months, as part of a broader external relations drive to bolster the EU's energy security.

But closer integration between the EU power grid and the Russian system has been ruled out in the short term by EU power industry association Eurelectric. It says the EU and Russian systems are not currently compatible, as Russia has a very centralized system with central dispatch. Even cross border power trade between Russia and the EU would be difficult because Russia has no means of auctioning interconnector capacity, while the EU uses implicit auctions.