ANKARA
Baltic and North European countries are constructing new huge power lines between themselves to meet their electricity needs as they try to reduce their dependence on Russia for energy supplies.
Nordic and Baltic countries are developing projects for new power connections. There are eight projects in total, five of them are active and three projects already completed.
LitPol, the Lithuania-Poland interconnection, is a planned electricity link between the Baltic transmission system and the synchronous grid of Continental Europe. SwePol, is a subsea interconnection between Sweden and Poland. EstLink, is a connection between Estonia and Finland, whose first part completed and second will be completed in 2014.
Fenno-Skan, a three-pronged project between Sweden and Finland, will add a third line in 2020, according to International Energy Agency. Nordbalt is another project between Sweden and Lithuania which is scheduled to be operational in 2015. The lines' length will be about 1,005 miles (1,620 kilometers) in total. The aim of the projects is to supply 5,000 megawatts of electricity.
The new interconnections between Nordic and Baltic countries will increase competition and efficiency in the electricity market, according to Juha Hiekkala, the electricity market and EU integration manager of Fingrid, a Finnish energy company.
"These projects' target is to have an EU-wide electricity market. One step to reach that target is to integrate Nordic and Baltic markets. The Russian power is not as competitive as it was years ago." he said. "Finland and also Baltic countries have possibilities to replace the import from Russia by their own capacity or Nordic import."
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania operate Nordpool, the largest market for electrical energy in the world. More than 70 percent of the total consumption of electricity in the Nordic market is traded through Nordpool.
The power independence of the Baltic and Nordic countries is becoming stronger and the EU energy supply becomes more assured with these giant projects, according to Lithuanian national operator, Litgrid.
