At the request of system operator Elering, the Estonian government is set to initiate a national designated spatial plan and a strategic environmental impact assessment for the fourth electricity connection between Estonia and Latvia.
The purpose of the planning procedure is to explore whether and under what conditions it would be possible to build a 330-kilovolt connection from Paide in central Estonia through Lihula near the West Coast to the Sorve peninsula on the island of Saaremaa.
Building the new Estonia-Latvia power link via Saaremaa would enable to obtain the maximum amount of additional transmission capacity between the two countries at the lowest cost. For that, new 330-kilovolt lines need to be built, which currently do not exist on Estonia’s largest island.
The route of the marine cable between Estonia and Latvia will be selected separately from the spatial planning process in question.
The size of the planning area is approximately 6,314 square kilometers.
The costs of preparing the national designated spatial plan, including the costs related to the impact assessment and studies, will be borne by Elering. The estimated duration of drawing up the national designated spatial plan is 2-3 years.
The electricity system operators of Estonia and Latvia, Elering and Augstsprieguma tikls (AST), signed a memorandum of understanding last autumn to establish a new electricity interconnection between the two countries. Under current plans, the new interconnector would have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts and could be completed in the 2030s. The fourth Estonian-Latvian interconnector will be a hybrid interconnector, which would not only interconnect the electricity systems of the two countries, but would also allow for the connection of renewable generation capacities.
The third Estonian-Latvian electricity link became operational in 2020. The two older connectors crossing the Estonian-Latvian border near Valga are being overhauled by Elering as part of the large-scale project of synchronizing the power systems of the Baltic countries with the power grid of continental Europe. The reconstruction of the first connector has been completed, the deadline for the reconstruction of the second is end-2024.
Source: BNS
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