The consortium includes URS Polska, the Polish subsidiary of the New York-listed international engineering, construction and technical services group URS, and URS Scott Wilson's Lithuanian branch, as well as Lithuania's Energetikos Projektai (Energy Projects), the power transmission system operator Litgrid said on Tuesday.
The company signed the contract with the consortium on Tuesday.
The consortium is to draw up the technical design for the upgrading of the Alytus transformer substation's 330 kilovolt (kV) switchyard and technical specifications for the procurement of contract works, as well as to perform geological, geodesic and archaeological surveys, and to obtain the construction permit and to supervise the implementation of the construction project. The technical design is to be completed by January 2013.
Preparing the Alytus transformer station for the installation of a high voltage direct current back-to-back station is a key project in the construction of a power interconnection between Lithuania and Poland, known as LitPol Link.
France's energy grid construction company Alstom Grid, Sweden's power and automation technology company ABB and Germany's Siemens are competing to design and build the back-to-back station with a 400 kV switchyard in Alytus, in southern Lithuania. The three companies are the largest manufacturers of such equipment and project contractors in the region.
The Lithuanian-Polish link will become the first intersystem connection between Lithuania's electricity infrastructure and that of Western Europe.
The interconnection is planned to be fully operational by the end of 2015 with a capacity of 500 megawatts, to be raised to 1,000 MW by 2020.
