Lithuania’s Ministry of Energy announced on 2 September 2026 that it is accelerating the replacement of overhead 10 kV power lines with underground cable in three municipalities — Lazdijai, Tauragė, and Jurbarkas — moving completion up by one year, from 2028 to the end of 2027.
The three municipalities together have roughly 134 km of 10 kV lines slated for undergrounding. About 47 km has already been completed, representing roughly €4 million in investment. The remaining approximately 86 km — 42.2 km in Lazdijai, 28.5 km in Tauragė, and 16 km in Jurbarkas — will cost an estimated €5.66 million in total (€2.8 million, €1.9 million, and €962,000 respectively), according to the ministry. Design work is scheduled for the third quarter of 2026, contractor selection for the first quarter of 2027, with construction running through the end of 2027. The work is being carried out by ESO, Lithuania’s state-owned electricity distribution operator.
The ministry said the acceleration is driven by two factors: reducing the risk of power outages during storms, and the strategic importance of these three regions, which are hosting expanded military infrastructure. Tauragė is the site of an existing military training ground now being expanded, while Lazdijai is near the newly established Kapčiamiestis brigade training ground — part of Lithuania’s broader effort to strengthen defenses along the Suwałki Corridor, the narrow strip of territory connecting Poland to the Baltic states that is widely viewed as NATO’s most exposed point in the region. Energy Minister Lukas Savickas said underground lines “substantially reduce the risk of power outages during storms and other natural disasters.”
Already-completed work in the three municipalities benefits 6,283 grid users; the accelerated completion is expected to bring improved reliability to an additional 10,175 users, for a combined total of more than 16,400.
The three-municipality project is one piece of a larger national program. In March 2025, Lithuania’s government approved a plan to underground 2,000 km of 10 kV lines running through forests nationwide over three years, roughly tripling the previous replacement pace. The plan was budgeted at a preliminary €50 million — €10 million from Lithuania’s Climate Change Program and €40 million from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, with additional funding sources under consideration. The government launched the program after a severe storm in July 2024 left roughly 300,000 customers without power, some for more than a week; officials noted at the time that neighbouring Latvia and Estonia maintain wider forest clearances (6.5–10 metres) around overhead lines, which reduces storm damage, but Lithuania opted to prioritize undergrounding over widening its own clearances.
ESO’s undergrounding share has been rising: the operator reported about 34.5% of its roughly 127,000 km network was underground as of March 2025, up to about 39% of a roughly 135,000 km network by September 2026. In a separate project completed in 2025, ESO undergrounded 85 km of lines in the Panevėžys region at a cost of nearly €10 million. ESO director Renaldas Radvila has said the company’s cabling work could eventually prevent outages for around 280,000 customers.
