Litgrid explained how the electricity from the Astrava nuclear power plant enters Lithuania, but are Belarusians benefiting? | Deal

Litgrid and representatives of the State Energy Regulatory Council held a press conference a week after the declaration of the Minister of Energy Dainius Kreivis that Lithuania not only consumes but also pays for the electricity of Astravas, thus financing the construction of the second reactor of the power plant.

This issue is relevant in Lithuania, as Vilnius seeks to boycott Astravas’ access to the country’s market, not wanting Belarusians to benefit from this suspicious security project.

Giedrius Radvila, head of Litgrid’s Systems Management Department, said that after Belarusians started exporting electricity from the Astravas power station, the amount of electricity traded in third-country Baltic States increased by a quarter and a half, which has already caused suspicion. .

According to him, then specialists found out that after Astrava began to operate, the electrical infrastructure of the Baltic countries was used much more intensively for the flow of flows, and finally the periods in which the electricity produced in Belarus entered the Lithuania.

G. Radvila explained a more detailed outline of how this happens.

Currently, the Baltic countries trade electricity with third parties through the Latvian-Russian connection. Once these parties have reached an agreement, it must, of course, be implemented, but Russia does not always have the means to do so.

That flow enters Lithuania through the cross section of Lithuania and Belarus.

“Russian traders sell electricity on the Latvian stock exchange. There is a transaction in progress, for example 950 megawatts … Russia receives payment through the Nord Pool exchange for the completed transaction,” Radvila said.

According to him, in this way the Russians undertake that the specified amount of electricity enters the Baltic market on a specific day.

“However, there are situations quite often, especially when the Belarusian nuclear power plant is operating and the Belarusian system has a surplus, that the generator in Russia does not provide a commercial obligation,” said a Litgrid official.

According to him, then it happens that electricity comes to Lithuania from Belarus as a physical flow, which is eventually consumed.

“We have examples where a negligible amount of electricity flowed from Russia to the Baltic States, and the Belarusian system is in surplus at that time … and we see that the execution of the transaction, which was concluded by Russia the day before , it is physically feasible and flows to Lithuania through the cross section of Lithuania and Belarus, ”said G. Radvila.

Do Belarusians get money from it?

According to Litgrid, the Ministry of Energy announced last week that from January 1-18 this year alone, Belarusian electricity exports to Lithuania amounted to 33 million LTL. kWh and entered Lithuania. This is around 17.5 percent. of the total amount negotiated with Russia through Latvia.

After the resumption of operation of the Astrava nuclear power plant on January 21, the export of Belarusian electricity to Lithuania increased further: from January 21 to 31, it amounted to 71 million LTL. kWh or 50 percent. the total amount traded through the Nord Pool Spot in Latvia’s electricity trading zone with Russia, which actually came from Belarus.

Commenting on these data after the meeting of the Seimas Defense and National Security Committee, the Minister of Energy D. Kreivys added that the profit from the transactions from January 21 to 31 for Belarus amounted to about 4 million. euros.

Representatives for Litgrid and the State Energy Regulatory Council said they had no direct evidence that Belarus was the ultimate financial beneficiary of such business schemes.

“We do not have information about what is happening on the other side of the border and how these transactions are being implemented (…). We only see how those transactions are physically implemented or secured by supplying electricity to the Baltic countries”, said G. Radvila, representative of Litgrid.

“This scheme, which I presented, allows the Belarusian nuclear power plant to export and sell electricity to other systems and increases the possibilities of importing electricity from Russia to the Baltic States. This means that Belarus benefits from the sale and export of electricity,” he added .

Renatas Pocius, president of the State Energy Regulatory Council, said that seeking benefits from this scheme for Belarus was not a priority.

“The most important thing is that the electricity of Belarusian origin enters the Baltic market,” the official said.

Guilty methodology

Conservatives said even before coming to power that the boycott could not be implemented now due to last year’s flawed agreement between Baltic energy ministers defining electricity trade with third countries.

This agreement stipulates that trade between the Baltic states is carried out exclusively through the connections between Latvia and Russia, but the Lithuanian energy market regulator refused to approve this document.

The State Energy Regulatory Council (VERT) argued that the Baltic States’ trade with third countries exceeded the capacity of the Latvian-Russian connection, which opens up opportunities for electricity to flow through the Lithuanian-Belarusian connection for purposes commercial, which should be prohibited. under the “anti-astral” law of Lithuania.

Despite the fact that the Lithuanian VERT has not approved the new methodology, Latvia has been trading electricity through the connection between Latvia and Russia since the autumn.

All these circumstances led officials and some politicians to suspect that the agreement on the Baltic trade methodology with third countries opens the way for Belarus to indirectly trade electricity with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

At the press conference, the chairman of the State Energy Regulatory Council, R. Pocius, emphasized once again the need to find a way to persuade Latvians and Estonians to change the methodology.

“It is necessary to reach an agreement so that our infrastructure is not valued and does not allow a commercial transaction,” said the official.

Lithuania is seeking an international electricity boycott of the Astrava nuclear power plant to make the operation of this power plant as difficult as possible.

This is done on the grounds that the power plant itself was built in an unsafe manner, although Minsk rejects such accusations.

Lithuania formally stopped commercializing Belarusian electricity as soon as the first reactor of the Belarusian nuclear power plant started generating electricity, on November 3 last year. The so-called physical commissioning of the power plant began in August.