Litgrid: Wind and solar production doubled last week, electricity prices fell by 34 percent.

On March 25-31, the weekly average wholesale price of electricity in the Lithuanian price zone of the “Nord Pool” exchange decreased by 34 percent compared to the previous week. from 84 Eur/MWh to 56 Eur/MWh. In Latvia and Estonia, the average wholesale electricity price was the same as in Lithuania.

“Friday, March 29, stood out in particular, when the daily price of electricity reached only 24.9 EUR/MWh. The last time such a low average electricity price was on a working day was only on August 8, 2023. Last week, from Monday to late Friday evening, “LitPol Link” connection was unavailable on the Polish side due to network works,” Ramūnas Bikulčius, head of Litgrid’s Strategy Department, was quoted as saying in the press release.

“In the Baltic countries, the price of electricity decreased the most out of all trade zones in the region. The biggest influence was the doubled production of both wind and solar power plants. However, the shutdown of the connection with Poland also contributed, as a result of which Lithuania did not export cheap electricity to more expensive trade areas – Poland, Germany and other central European countries,” added R. Bikulčius.

According to him, the local electricity production last week was extremely high and reached as much as 71 percent. consumption of Lithuania. In comparison, this year’s local generation average is 55 percent. from total consumption.

“The main reasons for this are sufficiently windy, although at the same time warm and sunny weather, the growing share of electricity produced by generating consumers and the festive Easter weekend,” said R. Bikulčius.

Electricity consumption in Lithuania decreased by 9 percent last week. from 241 GWh to 218 GWh. Local power plants in the country provided 71 percent. electricity consumption. In total, 154 GWh of electricity was produced in Lithuania last week, which is 48 percent. more than a week ago, when domestic production reached 104 GWh.

In Lithuania last week, most of the electricity was produced by wind power plants. Their production more than doubled – from 34 GWh to 76 GWh. The production of solar power plants also grew rapidly and almost doubled from 16 GWh to 30 GWh.

Thermal power plants connected to the transmission network generated 22 percent. less than a week ago, their production decreased from 21 GWh to 16 GWh. Hydroelectric generation decreased by 8 percent. – from 19 GWh to 17 GWh. Last week, wind farms produced 49 percent. Of the electricity generated in Lithuania, solar power plants account for 19 percent, hydroelectric power plants – 11 percent, thermal power plants – 11 percent, and other power plants – 9 percent.

According to the import/export ratio, 38 percent. of the country’s electricity needs were imported. Compared to the previous week, the total amount of imports decreased by 40 percent. from 177 GWh to 107 GWh. When differentiating the country’s imports, 54 percent were imported from Scandinavia via the NordBalt connection, 35 percent. from Poland, and the remaining 11 percent electricity entered the country through the border with Latvia.

The total flow of electricity from Lithuania decreased by 2 percent. from 15.9 GWh to 15.6 GWh. 23 percent of exports from Lithuania were directed to Sweden, 15% to Latvia, and the remaining 62 percent to export to Poland with the “LitPol Link” connector.

For the flow of electricity, the utilization of the bandwidth of the “LitPol Link” connection reached 47 percent. in the direction of Poland and 39 percent. in the direction of Lithuania. NordBalt’s bandwidth utilization was 3 percent. in the direction of Sweden and 50 percent. in the direction of Lithuania.