The last reactor in operation at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) was shut down on New Year's Eve to comply with the requirements of Lithuania’s EU accession treaty. The closure of the 1500 MW unit, which currently supplies almost 70% of the country’s total electricity production, will have major economic and political implications. The Baltic States are neither connected to the Western electricity grid system (UCTE), nor to the Scandinavian one (Nordel). They are only linked to the Eastern system (IPS/UPS). Once the plant is closed, Baltic States could end up being more dependent on energy imports from Russia.

To compensate for the loss of capacity due to the closure of Ignalina, Lithuania has decided to build a new NPP at Visaginas. The plant is expected to come into operation by 2018. On 8 December 2009, Lithuania’s government officially launched a tender offer for the strategic investors. The potential investors have to send their bids by 29 January 2010 and the negotiations should be finalized by the end of 2010. An opinion poll conducted by TNS Gallup recently found that almost 67 percent of Lithuania's population would approve of bringing a strategic foreign investor with experience in the nuclear energy industry to build the planned new NPP.

Two other nuclear projects are in the pipeline in the region. Russia plans to construct a two-units NPP at Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave by 2018 (first unit in 2016 and second in 2018) and Belarus is also investigated the possibility to have a new plant by 2018. The new Kaliningrad NPP project will be financed up to 51% by the state-owned company, Rosatom and the rest by private investors. A governmental decree has already been adopted for the construction of the plant. The type of reactor will be a NPP 2006, VVR 1200.

Meanwhile the priority of the European Union is to put an end to the energy isolation of the Baltic countries. In June 2009, an Action Plan called the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) on how to integrate the Baltic countries in the European energy market was signed by eight Baltic Sea Region countries. The first step is to integrate the three Baltic States in the Nordic countries’ electricity market. Three main projects are being carried out to connect the electricity grid of the Baltic States to the Nordic one: the Estlink (an electricity cable between Estonia and Finland), NordBalt (a connection between Lithuania and Sweden), and LitPol (a connection between Poland with Lithuania). However the Baltic interconnection projects are expected to be completed by 2020, while the first new NPP in the region should be online in 2016.

For further information, you can consult the website of the Lithuanian power company, Lietuvos Energija, and the page of the EU website on the BEMIP.