The Agreement on the Conditions for a Future Synchronous Interconnection of the power system of the Baltic States and the power system of Continental Europe entered into force on 27 May 2019, announced ENTSO-E. To ensure energy security of their countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia agreed on synchronisation of their power systems with Europe by 2025.
The Interconnection agreement defines the rights and duties of the parties to ensure compliance of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian power transmission system operators (TSOs) with the established requirements and assumed obligations. The application to future connection was made by the Baltic States TSOs (Elering, AST and Litgrid) and supported by the Polish TSO (PSE).
The Agreement will be implemented in accordance with the catalogues of connection conditions. It is a code of 409 technical and practical operational standards and indicators, upon implementation of which, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will connect and operate in the same frequency with continental European power system. At present, the Baltics power systems meet approximately 40% (169) measures of these measures.
It was agreed on modernisation and strengthening of the domestic power transmission systems of all three Baltic States during the first stage of works, which will last until 2021. This stage has already received maximum financing from the European Union.
The goal of the second stage, simultaneously implemented, is to finalise the stage of strengthening capacity of the power transmission link between Lithuania and Polish LitPol Link, with the system operators proportionally dividing the inertia requirement to build synchronous compensators in the Baltic States and upon coordination with the ENTSO-E to conduct a joint test of the operation in 'island' regime.
The goal established in the final stage of works is to complete the Harmony sea link construction and implement the remaining measures stipulated in the catalogue of connection conditions by 2025.
The Continental Europe power system stretches across 26 countries and is one of the largest interconnected power systems in the world. The Baltic States power system is currently asynchronously connected to Continental Europe through LitPol Link between Lithuania and Poland and to the Nordic Synchronous Area through NordBalt between Lithuania and Sweden and Estlink 1 and 2 between Estonia and Finland.
The Baltic synchronisation with Continental Europe is part of the EU Energy Union strategy and will provide for the Baltic TSOs to operate their systems under the frequency of the Continental European System and under the EU rules. The operational rules of the TSOs of Continental Europe have been updated on 14 April 2019 with the entry into force of the Synchronous Area Framework Agreement (SAFA) which ensures compliance with the EU network codes and guidelines.
Source: www.entsoe.eu with www.litgrid.eu