After the successful completion of scheduled maintenance works, the “NordBalt” interconnection has been re-energised two days earlier than planned.
Lithuania’s electricity transmission system operator, Litgrid, reports that following the annual planned maintenance works in Lithuania, the “NordBalt” electricity interconnection was successfully switched back on two days ahead of schedule. At the end of October, due to reconstruction works at the Kruonis transformer substation, the interconnection’s transmission capacity for electricity imports will be limited to 438 MW.
“NordBalt” was switched on and became available for day-ahead electricity trading on Friday at 14:27.
During the outage, the Lithuanian transmission system operator carried out the planned technical maintenance of the “NordBalt” converter station in Klaipėda: preventive maintenance and fault repair of the converter, control system, cooling system, and outdoor switchyard — tasks that cannot be performed while the equipment is operational.
The scope and frequency of the maintenance works are determined in accordance with the converter equipment manufacturer’s instructions and Litgrid’s transmission network operation regulations. The inspection of the most critical systems must be carried out annually; however, as access to certain areas and equipment is not possible while the converter is running, these servicing works can only be performed when the converter is shut down.
Due to the ongoing reconstruction works at the Kruonis 330 kV transformer substation and reduced availability of balancing capacity, “NordBalt’s” transmission capacity will be limited between 20 and 30 October to 438 MW for imports and 356 MW for exports.
During the first eight months of this year, “NordBalt’s” overall market availability reached 98.05 per cent, with 2.54 TWh of electricity imported from Sweden to Lithuania and 0.242 TWh exported.
The 700 MW electricity interconnection with Sweden has been operational since 2016.
