From February 2025, the Baltic States plan to disconnect from the BRELL power supply ring and become completely independent from electricity supplies from Russia and Belarus, and then connect to the European power grid. Users will see changes in their bills starting in 2026. Calculations by transmission operators in all three Baltic States indicate that the impact of the synchronization project on the overall costs of the electricity service will be small, Alda Ozola, Chairperson of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, noted in an interview with Diena. Balancing reserves are important for ensuring the stable operation of the Baltic electricity system. The impact of the costs of ensuring the necessary reserves in the Baltics on final bills in Latvia, as well as in Estonia and Lithuania, is projected to be less than 5%. In order to reduce the impact of synchronization costs on electricity consumers, according to the Ministry of Climate and Energy, co-financing from the European Union in the amount of more than 300 million euros has been attracted to strengthen the Latvian electricity grid infrastructure, purchase synchronization equipment and battery storage systems. "In order to reduce the impact of synchronization costs on electricity consumers, the investments in the transmission system required to ensure synchronization are covered by up to 96% through EU co-financing and congestion charges, so there is almost no burden on tariffs," Ozola noted. Tariffs for the transmission system service have been approved until the end of 2025, new transmission tariffs and, accordingly, changes in user bills will appear starting in 2026. According to calculations by the Latvian transmission system operator Augstsprieguma tīkls, the total impact of synchronization-related costs on the system service tariff for the period starting in 2026 is estimated at up to 2%. "A decrease in electricity prices cannot be expected in the near future. A realistic scenario shows that in the next six months, average monthly prices in the Latvian price zone will fluctuate between 76 and 120 euros per megawatt-hour," predicts Raimonds Verdiņš, Head of the Legal Clients Segment at Enefit. As reported, the Baltic states had to notify Russia and Belarus of the non-extension of the BRELL agreement by August 7, six months before the scheduled synchronization. Last August, the prime ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia signed a declaration committing to synchronizing the Baltic states’ power grids with Western Europe by February 2025. In December, this was confirmed in a declaration by the European Commission and the energy ministers of the Baltic states and Poland. The power supply systems of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have historically been built to operate in a single ring with the power systems of Russia and Belarus. Being part of BRELL means that even if the Baltic states do not purchase electricity from Russia and Belarus, they still depend on these countries, since all states in the ring are connected to the same grid and operate at the same frequency, AST explains. Thus, the Baltic states are now in a sense isolated from the rest of Europe. To strengthen the region's independence, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have been working on disconnecting from BRELL and synchronising with the rest of Europe since 2007. This is not an easy process – fundamental changes must be made to the transmission network infrastructure and control technologies. In 2018, all three countries agreed to join the EU system by the end of 2025. Read more about How will the disconnection of the Latvian power system from BRELL take place and how much will it cost?
