Energy, Energy Market, Good for Business, Lithuania

The company says it has signed some 200 sale-purchase contracts and hopes to bring their number to 15,000 by the end of this year.

"When entering the market for supplying power to residents with 1.6 million potential clients, we see not only a huge potential in bolstering our position in Lithuania but we are also providing residents a wider choice," Martynas Giga, director at Elektrum Lietuva, said in a statement.

In his words, the biggest influx of private consumers is expected in the second half of this year when power distribution company Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius (ESO) will create equal competition conditions for alternative suppliers.

Elektrum Lietuva posted 63 mln euros in revenue last year, down 8.7%  from 69 mln euros in 2018. The company had 7,430 clients in 2018.

In early April, Enefit, part of the Estonia energy business group Eesti Energia, also started supplying electricity to some Lithuanian households. The company then told it had signed 200 contracts and hoped to have 10,000 of them.

In the middle of January, the Seimas of Lithuania started deliberating a proposal to gradually completely liberalize the electricity market by 2023 and renounced the regulation of electricity prices for households. Under the amendments, the liberalization would take place in three stages, and consumers will need to pick independent electricity providers.

The liberalization of the electricity market is one of Lithuania's commitments to the EU. Estonia completely liberalized its electricity market in 2013 and Latvia did so in 2015.