Energy, EU – Baltic States, Lithuania, Nuclear Power

The President said that she supports the idea of Lithuania remaining a country of a diverse energy, because the states such as the countries in Baltic cannot afford the luxury of meeting the needs solely from renewable energy sources. The president believes that the situation will not change in the next 20-30 years.

 "Visaginas NPP project is definitely beneficial to the countries as in 10-20 years no alternative energy sources will be able to compete with nuclear energy, neither in cost, nor in purity", said Grybauskaite.

 As ELTA has previously reported, on 21 June, the Seimas approved of the Nuclear Power Plant Law amendments and agreed on the concession agreement with the strategic investor, the Japanese company Hitachi. This means that the Visaginas NPP project can be further carried out.

 The beginning of the Visaginas NPP construction is planned on 2015, whereas it will start to operate in 2020 -2021.

 The cost of the Visaginas NPP project is estimated at LTL 17 billion (EUR 4.9 billion). Lithuania will contribute LTL 6 billion (EUR 1.7 billion). The beginning of the construction is planned in 2015, and the operation of the plant will begin in 2020-2021.

 Since Poland withdrew from the Visaginas NPP project last December, the remaining participants of the project are Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the strategic investor Japan's Hitachi.

It is provisioned that Hitachi will own 20 percent of the Visaginas NPP shares. Latvia will also have 20 percent, Estonia - 22 percent and Lithuania - 38 percent, reported LETA