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The Vilnius Regional Court dismissed on December 21 a request by Energetikos Tinklu Institutas (ETI), one of Lithuania's biggest energy facility designing and construction companies, to temporarily suspend the procedure and ban Litgrid from signing a contract until the court issues its final decision on the matter. 

ETI CEO Giedrius Lynikas told hat the company bid for the contract jointly with its shareholder, China's state-owned energy engineering and construction company North China Power Engineering Co. Ltd.

The consortium submitted the best financial offer and was to be named the winning bidder, but was removed for allegedly not meeting the qualification requirements, he said. 

The repeat tender with an estimated value of 26.9 mln euros, including VAT, opened in late August and closed on October 1. The number of bidders and their names have not been disclosed. 

Litgrid spokeswoman Jurga Eivaite said the company expects to name the winning bidder in January, adding that they cannot reveal the details until the process has been completed. 

The winning bidder will have until late January 2021 to expand the interconnection with Poland by installing autotransformers at the Alytus transformer substation. 

Litgrid has told that LitPol Link has a maximum capacity of over 2,000 megawatts (MW), but the Alytus converter station limits its capacity to 500 MW. 

Autotransformers need to be installed at the Alytus transformer substation for the interconnection to be able to operate at full capacity and synchronously with the European system following the planned completion of the synchronization project in 2025.