Baltic States – CIS, Energy, Lithuania

"Operation without Lithuanian power system is no big news for the Lithuanian electricity system – it happened each year when the power plant was stopped for scheduled overhauls. There have also been cases when the plant had to be stopped beyond the schedule due to faults, but this has caused no outages across Lithuania – not in a single town or settlement. Now we are prepared for the situation in advance, it has all been planned," said Aloyzas Koryzna, the Chief Executive Officer of Lietuvos Energija.

The electricity transmission grid is ready for operation without INPP. This year the repair work of high voltage (330- 110 kV) overhead lines was carried out, line routes were inspected and cleared, requisite repair work of switchyards and transformer substations was completed, the statement of Lietuvos Energija said.

Preparation for operation under different circumstances has also been performed together with power system operators of neighbouring countries. According to Koryzna, the essential change is that Lithuanian power system will switch to imports from exports. The dispatchers of Lithuania and neighbouring countries have recalculated bottlenecks of power lines and performed general tests of systems, simulated possible disruptions of systems and scheduled electricity transmission modes in the system after the closure of the nuclear power plant.

The expected electricity demand of Lithuania in 2010 is roughly 9.1 billion kilowatt-hours.

More than a half of electricity will be generated by the power plants of Lithuania.

"Lithuania has enough generation capacity to meet the demand of consumers and, if necessary, the local power plants can generate about 12 million terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity", said Koryzna. The main generators of the country – Lietuvos Elektrine power plant, heat power plants of Kaunas, Vilnius, Panevezys, Kruonis PSP and Kruonis HPP, Mazeikiai power plant.

It is scheduled that Lietuvos Elektrine power plant will generate up to 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours, 0.35 – the renewables (hydro power plants, wind parks), up to 1.15 – the country's heat power plants, 1.1 – other domestic power plants. The rest of the domestic power demand will be covered by imported electricity.

Electricity supply contracts have been made with Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine and there are possibilities to import electricity from Scandinavia. Technical possibilities have been ensured for electricity imports from Scandinavian countries – 0.2-0.6 TWh, from Estonia – 0.9-1.5 TWh, Latvia – 0.1-0.2 TWh, Belarus – 0.3-2 TWh, from the Ukraine – 0.8-1.5 TWh of electricity.