“Today, history is made,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen declared during a ceremony held in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, last month: “This is freedom, freedom from threats, freedom from blackmail.”
On Feb. 9, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania officially disconnected from the Russian-controlled Brell power grid. The following day, they successfully connected to the European Union’s electricity network.
The synchronization process with Europe also marked a crucial moment for continental integration. The transition, in the works since 2007, was accelerated by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“This is truly something that has been a long time coming,” notes Michael Bradshaw, professor of Global Energy at the University of Warwick. “The switch removes the Baltic states from the Soviet-era electricity grid and from exposure to Russian manipulation, giving them a greater degree of energy independence on the one hand, and closer integration into the wider European electricity grid on the other.”
A relic of the Soviet Union, the Brell—which stands for Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—is primarily controlled by Moscow. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the EU and NATO in 2004, and have since invested heavily in infrastructure renovations, including building new mainland and undersea power lines. Still, their energy sectors remained vulnerable and reliant on Russia.
Despite managing to entirely cut energy purchases from Russia, the three countries continued to rely on the Brell grid to control frequencies and maintain a constant power supply, which can be more easily achieved in a large-scale synchronized network than in a smaller one. With a total cost of €1.6 billion ($1.67 billion), including €1.2 billion funded by the EU, Bradshaw says the project also speaks to a growing concern about “electricity security,” a term championed by the International Energy Agency as the electrification push and plans to decarbonize Europe’s energy system gather pace. “Electricity interconnection is important to balancing national grids, but as highlighted by the recent political crisis in Norway, where local electricity prices went up as the country was exporting a growing amount of power, it is also becoming a point of contention,” he argues.