News & events

2014-10-17

New High-Voltage Transmission Line Successfully Launched

Electricity has begun flowing through the new high-voltage power transmission line running from Klaipėda to Telšiai. This is the first 330 kV power transmission line to be built in Lithuania since the restoration of independence. The new overhead line will ensure that electricity from Northern Europe can reach all of Lithuania when the NordBalt power bridge begins to function next year.
 
“The new 330 kV Klaipėda-Telšiai transmission line fundamentally improves the reliability of power supply to both the city and district of Klaipėda. Until now, only cross-border links functioned in the western part of Lithuania, and electricity had to be transmitted between eastern and western Lithuania through the territory of neighbouring countries,” said Daivis Virbickas, Chairman of the Board and CEO at Lithuanian electricity transmission system operator Litgrid. “The Klaipėda-Telšiai power line is also necessary to take full advantage of the NordBalt power link, launch of which is planned in December 2015,” he added.
 
The transmission line of nearly 90 kilometres connects the Klaipėda and Telšiai transformer substations. Three years of work on the line included the construction of 265 steel and concrete transmission pylons. A third of the power line’s route is forested. The line crosses rivers in the region, including the Minija, more than a dozen times. To protect birds that migrate through the Minija valley, markers were installed on the power lines to improve their visibility. Bird migration will be monitored over the coming year in the river valleys and woody areas that the power line crosses. In the near future, electromagnetic fields under sections of the high-voltage power line will be measured to ensure compliance with all regulatory norms and limits.
 
“The first high-voltage power line built in independent Lithuania was also a project-management challenge for the Lithuanian energy sector. While implementing this project, we’ve also been accumulating the skills and experience for building the other power lines which are needed for the integration of the national energy system with that of continental Europe,” Mr Virbickas noted.
 
An environmental impact assessment carried out when the project began in 2009 helped to identify a route for the new power line which is as far as possible from residential areas while also avoiding places of cultural importance and deposits of natural resources.
 
Costs of preparatory and construction works for the new power line totalled 68 million litai, with 40 percent of the project financed by the European Regional Development Fund. Owners of the roughly 600 plots of land crossed by the Klaipėda–Telšiai power line received a compensation of approximately 5 million LTL  for granting an easement to their property. .
 
With the new line, Lithuania now has 1,760 kilometres of 330 kV power lines. Litgrid controls nearly 6,800 power cables and overhead power lines used to transmit electricity throughout Lithuania and to the neighbouring power systems of Latvia, Belarus and Kaliningrad.