In February 2025, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will disconnect from the Russian electricity system – BRELL – and synchronize with the Central European frequency band. The project has been in development for 20 years, led by Elering.

On Christmas Day, EstLink 2 was damaged. Finnish officials suspect a Russian shadow fleet vessel is to blame. Several cables have been broken by ships in recent months. Politicians suspect deliberately so.

Kilk confirmed Estonia will proceed with the plan even if both Finnish-Estonian electricity connections are disrupted.

"The basic premise of desynchronization is that it will always be safer for us to be connected to Poland rather than to Russia," he said. "This process has to be carried out regardless of the circumstances. The only question is in the details – what tools we use to achieve this transition? And afterward, operating while connected to Poland will certainly be safer."

Kilk said the EstLink cables help to maintain local frequencies. "Particularly through Estlink 1, it is possible to carry out rapid frequency regulation," said Kilk, adding Estlink 2 would also have been helpful.

"This means that in the Baltics, we need to have more reserves capable of handling such rapid regulation themselves," he said. "As system operators, this brings us a bit of extra thinking on how to ensure these reserve volumes here. However, the physical result is exactly the same whether the reserve is provided by one of the Estlink connections or by a power plant in the Baltics. The result is equally effective."

Kilk explained that batteries work best for maintaining frequency. "If batteries are not sufficient, there must be some power plants running somewhere, maintaining a small reserve capacity for both upward and downward regulation," he said.

Part of the production capacity of oil shale power plants can also be used to maintain frequency. However, where the frequency reserve is located at any given time depends largely on the market, i.e. who is offering the cheapest price at the time.

"It is quite a bit simpler and often cheaper to maintain this in hydroelectric power plants," Kilk said. "For example, Latvia has three large hydroelectric power plants on the Daugava River. During the winter, the water flow there is not very high, but it is sufficient to use as a reserve for ramping production up or down for a few hours. Lithuania also has a large pumped-storage hydroelectric plant. These are likely the most suitable candidates."

Kilk added that if there are not enough conventional rotating power plants in the system, synchronous compensators are used – electricity-powered flywheels whose kinetic energy can be converted back into electrical energy.

"We know in advance how much inertia we need, and if power plants do not provide enough based on market results, we activate synchronous condensers. This is continuously monitored 15 minutes ahead and also planned a day in advance," Kilk said.

He said the Baltics need to be able to manage by themselves anyway. It was always taken into account that there would be enough reserves on site even if the Estonian-Finnish connections were not working.

"These Estlink connections simply provide us with an additional reserve to ensure extra security," Kilk said.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the last EU member states not connected to the European network. The switchover will not result in changes for ordinary consumers.

However, the desynchronization could lead to a negative reaction from Russia and asymmetric countermeasures, experts have said.

The entire desynchronization project will cost €1.6 billion, of which Estonia's share is approximately €300 million. EU funding paid for 75 percent of the work.

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