The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and the Estonian Competition Authority (ECA) support the capacity calculation methodology jointly developed by JSC Augstsprieguma tīkls and JSC Elering, which specifies how electricity capacity for trade with Russia will be calculated.
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The PUC has concluded that the solutions included in the methodology for calculating capacities with Russia are justified and the methodology ensures that electricity trade with Russia will not be interrupted.
As it was done till Augstsprieguma tīkls will also continue to request and control the proofs of origin submitted by the Russian electricity trader LLC Inter RAO Latvija thus ensuring that the electricity traded in Latvia is generated in Russia.
According to the new methodology, double capacity restrictions will be eliminated, because in the methodology developed unilaterally by the Lithuanian transmission operator Litgrid AB, the total transmission capacities in the Belarus Lithuania interconnection are excluded, except for the technically necessary ones. As a result, the restriction included in the previous methodology, which excluded the Belarus-Lithuania interconnection capacities from electricity trade, no longer must be a part of the common methodology of Latvia and Estonia.
When calculating capacities, electricity transmission operators take into account the interconnection capacities in the power systems of Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Among other things, various technical conditions, and network models, such as generation and load strategy, as well as power line outages and other capacity constraints are considered in the capacity calculation. The methodology also envisages that the Estonia-Latvia and Latvia-Lithuania interconnection capacities are not affected by the capacity calculation with Russia.
ECA has concluded that JSC Elering has analyzed the influence of the Methodology on the electricity system and compliance with the methodologies arising from the Commission Regulation (EU) 2015/1222 of 24 July 2015 establishing a guideline on capacity allocation and congestion management (CACM).
The content of the new methodology has been explained to market participants. The methodology does not conflict with the current methodology for calculating capacities for the Member State borders within Baltic capacity calculation region.
Taking into account these circumstances, PUC and ECA does not see any contradictions in the implementation of the Methodology by AST and Elering
The methodology shall enter into force on October 12, 2021. ■