Baltic states need to coordinate their electricity strategies - Ignitis Group

RIGA - The Baltic states have interconnected electricity markets and they need to coordinate their electricity strategies, Darius Maikstenas, board chairman of Lithuanian power utility Ignitis Group, said today at the wind energy conference WindWorks. Powering Economy.

He stressed that the Baltic countries have too small electricity markets and need to integrate them. He said that the Baltic governments need to coordinate their electricity strategies - what generation capacities are planned in each country and what support they need.

He explained that Lithuania gets its electricity from Latvian hydroelectric power plants (HPPs) and Latvia from Lithuanian wind farms, meanwhile, if Estonia builds its planned nuclear power plant, it will only produce too much for its own market.

"We are linked markets and sooner or later these markets will have to coordinate," Maikstenas stressed, adding that at the same time the Baltic countries develop best in competition with each other.

Liga Kurevska, State Secretary at the Ministry of Climate and Energy, said that the Baltic countries often underestimate how united they are.

"We try to compete with each other, when in reality we are capable of creating united markets," Kurevska said, citing the Baltic countries' common balancing and gas markets as an example.

She also said that the Baltic countries need to coordinate their electricity strategies. "Not everything can be coordinated, but if we look at what we have already done, it is a lot," Kurevska said.

During the discussion, representatives from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia also pointed out that public awareness of the fact that electricity generation from renewable energy resources means lower electricity prices in the long term is crucial for the implementation of renewable energy projects.

Kurevska explained that it is easy to prove with data that renewable electricity is cheaper, but there is a historical perception that "green means more expensive", which is not true today.

As reported, today Riga hosts the Baltic wind energy conference WindWorks. Powering Economy.