Energy, Energy Market, EU – Baltic States, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

In the environmental implementation review, the EC said Lithuania should "avoid building excessive infrastructure for the treatment of residual waste, which would treat approximately 30% of municipal waste."

"The construction of two additional Combined Heat and Power plants CHPs is likely to lead to municipal waste incineration overcapacity. Lithuania plans to incinerate 30 percent of its municipal waste," reads the review.

With two facilities built in Vilnius and Kaunas with total capacity of about 360,000 tons per year, Lithuania would be able to burn a total of about 560,000 tons of waste annually.

According to the EC, the optimal incineration capacity in a country is 20-25 percent of municipal waste generated, and incineration capacity in excess of this is likely to further hinder Lithuania from meeting the 50% recycling target in 2020.

Lietuvos Energija, which intends to build cogeneration plants in Vilnius and Kaunas, is at odds with the market whether the power plants will have enough waste in 2030. Calculations suggest that just over 400,000 tons of waste will be generated in 2030, therefore, the annual capacity of 150,000 tons in three CHPs in Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda would be unused.

However, Lietuvos Energija says that even successful recycling of industrial waste will leave about 200,000 tons of waste in 2030, which will keep the CHPs busy. The calculations are backed by the Environment Ministry, emphasizing that industrial waste was difficult to project.