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Empower, Leonhard Weiss to build 3rd Estonia-Latvia power link

BC, Tallinn, 22.08.2017.Print version
Elering has signed a contract with Empower AS and Leonhard Weiss Energy AS on the implementation of the project for a third high voltage electricity interconnection between Estonia and Latvia for 60 million euros, reports LETA/BNS.

Design and construction of the main portion of the new power link, a 330/110-kilovolt line between Harku near Tallinn, Lihula in Western Estonia and Sindi near Parnu, will cost approximately 60 million euros exclusive of VAT, Elering said.

 

It added that building the new power link will not increase transmission fees for Estonian consumers. The project represents the biggest ever individual investment by Elering in alternating current power lines.

 

"The line is important from a number of aspects – it makes up the core of the third Estonia-Latvia interconnection and is the most important prerequisite for the desynchronization of the Baltic countries from the power system of Russia. At the same time, the new line will enable to integrate the renewable energy capacities of Western Estonia with the electricity network on a significantly bigger scale," Elering CEO Taavi Veskimagi said.

 

With the similar Tartu-Viljandi-Sindi 330/110-kilovolt overhead line completed three years ago, the new line will mark the completion of the nationwide 330-kilovolt Tallinn-Narva-Tartu-Parnu-Tallinn ring network that cost over 100 million euros to build.

 

The length of the Harku-Lihula-Sindi line is approximately 175 kilometers. Construction is to start in the second half of 2018 and one-fifth of the new power line is to be ready by the end of the same year. The power line is to be completed by the end of 2020.

 

Plans are to make the new overhead line well visible to birds. The Estonian Ornithological Society is conducting bird monitoring that will end this fall, on the basis of which the precise number of markers to be put on the power lines will be determined.

 

The joint offer by Empower and Leonhard Weiss was cheaper of the two final offers placed in the public procurement tender. Elering finances the construction of the power line with proceeds from the auctions of cross-border transmission capacities and EU funds. No money of Estonian electricity consumers will be spent to build the Harku-Lihula-Sindi interconnection.






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