Lithuania expects to ink energy link agreement with Poland Wednesday

Lithuanian side is showing flexibility towards Poland regarding the Power Grid between the two countries. On the other hand Poland came with other suggestions and proposed to include in the project Latvia and Estonia.

As the BNS reported the Lithuanian Economy Minister Navickas is hopeful and expects that Lithuania and Poland will sign in Vilnius on Wednesday an agreement to establish a joint venture to build an “energy bridge” between the two countries. “Yes, the heads of (Poland’s) PSE and Lietuvos Energija (Lithuanian Energy) should sign the agreement, which will be useful to Poland as well”.

He said to the BNS that “It (Poland) will be able to purchase as much electricity as it wants from several sources: to have its own share of electricity from the planned nuclear power plant at cost price and buy an additional amount from other producers at market prices”.

Under the draft agreement, the joint company would be registered in Lithuania and the Poles would have the right to nominate its chief executive officer.

Today Navickas met with the EU coordinator for the energy link project Wladyslaw Mielczarski, who came to Vilnius to attend this week’s international energy security forum.

“He (Mielczarski) suggested that if Latvia and Estonia joined the project, three or four lines could be required, rather than a single one, in order to connect the grids of all three Baltic countries to the Western European UCTE system,” the minister said.

“Our opinion is that the project should be carried out in two stages. The energy link between Lithuania and Poland needs to be built first,” Navickas added.

Navickas also said that the energy link could be used not only to export energy produced by the new nuclear plant but for other purposes as well. “Cheap night-time electricity from Poland could be stored at the Kruonis Hydro Pump Storage Plant and be transported back to Poland in daytime. There are many possible ways of using the energy bridge,” he said.

Source: irzikevicius.wordpress.com