Power exchange Nord Pool has decided to stop trading Russian electricity from its only importer in the Baltic States, Russian utility Inter RAO.
It means that as of Sunday, Lithuania has completely cut imports of Russian energy supplies, including oil, electricity and natural gas.
“Not only it is an extremely important milestone for Lithuania in its journey towards energy independence, but it is also an expression of our solidarity with Ukraine. We must stop financing the Russian war machine,” said Dainius Kreivys, Minister of Energy of Lithuania.
The Minister has also stressed that Lithuania will achieve full energy independence when it successfully implements synchronisation, meets its electricity needs through local green energy production and becomes an electricity exporter.
Lithuania’s gas needs are endured via the Klaipėda LNG terminal with cargoes from the US, its electricity needs are met through local power generation and imports from EU countries through existing interconnections with Sweden, Poland and Latvia, while Orlen Lietuva, the only oil importer in Lithuania, refused to import Russian crude oil more than a month ago.
“The cessation of Russian electricity imports has not affected the parallel synchronous operation of the Baltic power system with the Russian power system – the Baltic power systems are still technically connected to the Russian power system,” explained Gatis Junghāns, Member of the Board of Latvia’s Transmission System Operator (TSO) AST.
However, the suspension of imports will not affect the security of electricity supply in the Baltics, as the Baltic electricity import capacity from Russia has been limited to 300 megawatts (MW) since 3 March, with a separate limit of 150 MW on the Russian-Latvian border and 150 MW on the Kaliningrad-Lithuanian border.
