Russian electricity last year accounted for 56 percent of Lithuania's total power imports, down from 64 percent in 2011. The volume of electricity imported by Lithuania from Russia last year declined to 4.8 terawatt-hours (TWh), from 5.5 TWh the previous year, it wrote, citing the electricity transmission grid operator Litgrid's 2012 report.
Estonian electricity imports rose to 1.6 TWh last year, from 1.1 TWh in 2011, lifting its share of the total imports to 18.7 percent from 13 percent. In terms of the overall volume of electricity imports to Lithuania, Estonians have almost caught up with Latvians.
Estonia was able to offer cheaper electricity for several reasons but the main one is that prices of CO2 emission allowances fell sharply during the economic crisis, thus bringing down the cost of electricity generated by Estonian oil shale fuelled plants.
"The situation is changing. An increasing amount of Estonian electricity is coming to Lithuania. But we increase our production in the summer, when others are doing repairs at their plants. And combined heat and power plants generate no electricity at all in the warm period of the year," Lietuvos Rytas quoted Dalius Misiūnas, the CEO of the electricity production group Lietuvos Energija (Lithuanian Energy), as saying.
Even more changes are on the way in 2014 after a second power cable linking Estonia to Finland is launched, the paper reports.
