The grant agreement releasing €719.7 million of EU funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) to carry out Phase II of the synchronisation of the Baltic States electricity network with the Continental European Network (CEN) was officially signed.
Dirk Beckers, Director of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) said:
“This is the largest CEF Energy grant ever awarded, and will be decisive for completing the synchronisation of the Baltic States electricity grid with the Continental European Network. We are looking forward to working closely with the electricity transmission system operators of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland for the successful and timely implementation of this strategic project”.
The Connecting Europe Facility’s largest ever grant should allow the three Baltic states to gain full control of their electricity networks by 2025.
The European Union has agreed to provide Poland and the Baltic states with a grant worth 719.7 million euros to carry out phase two of a project to link the electricity networks of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with the Continental European Network (CEN).
The project aims to better integrate the electricity grids of the three Baltic states with those of the rest of Europe and ensure their energy independence from third countries. While in recent years Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have ended their electricity isolation by building new interconnections with Finland, Poland and Sweden, for historical reasons, their electricity grid is still operated in a synchronous mode with the Russian and Belarusian systems (commonly known as the BRELL ring).