Despite the push from Vilnius to speed up the decoupling from the Russian-controlled power grid, the Baltic states will not be able to leave the network next year and ahead of schedule.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are part of the Soviet-era BRELL network that also includes Belarus and is controlled by Moscow. The three Baltic countries planned to disconnect together from the grid in 2025, but Vilnius has been seeking to push the date forward following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
However, Estonia says it will only be able to transform its electricity grid to allow a switch away from BRELL in 2025, according to Rokas Masiulis, CEO of Litgrid, Lithuania’s power transmission system operator. He previously alleged that Estonia’s operator was doing everything to postpone the move.
"As the saying goes, hope is the last thing to die, but the way things are going, we are still dependent on Estonia. So if they don't change their position, unfortunately, it will be according to their schedule, not ours, because we cannot leave [the BRELL system] alone," he told LRT RADIO on Monday.
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Once out of the BRELL network, the Baltic states will synchronise with the continental European power grid. Earlier this year, Lithuania also successfully tested its ability to operate outside the BRELL network.
According to Timo Tatar, an official at the Estonian Economy and Communications Ministry, experts from the European Commission, Latvia and Estonia now believed that the scheduled synchronisation could be brought forward to the beginning of 2025.
But Taavi Veskimägi, head of the Estonian transmission operator Elering, accused Lithuania of breaching the decoupling agreement signed in 2018.
"The leaders of the Baltic States and Poland and the President of the European Commission signed an agreement in 2018 to synchronise the Baltic states with the electricity system of continental Europe by 2026. This is the agreement in force today," Veskimägi told the Estonian public broadcaster ERR.
"Today, there is an agreement in force between the countries, and there is no other way for us to do anything other than to follow this agreement,” he said. “Of course, all the other [options] can be considered, but as long as there is no agreement to the contrary, this agreement is valid."
Estonia is still building additional grid connections with Latvia to the south, Veskimägi said, alleging that Lithuania’s move to bring the deadline 18 months forward is due to domestic politics.
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