He said the interconnections had opened routes to Europe, which revised the behavior of market participants. In his words, the prices this year would be dictated by production in Nordic power plants, however, should be similar to last year's level.
"The impact of NordBalt and LitPol Link, the new power links, exceeded our expectations. Lithuania and Latvia are the only countries in the Baltic-Nordic region where the average market price for electricity has dropped last year. The new links enabled us to diversify the sources of electricity import, and we have been benefiting from this from the first days of the links' operation. Apart from opening the way to Europe, they have changed the behavior of players in the electricity market," Virbickas said in a press release.
In 2016, the average price for electricity in the Lithuanian bidding area of Nord Pool was the lowest in the history of the exchange: 36.5 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh), down by 25% from 2014 and 2013.
Virbickas said the 2017 by the volume of electricity production in Nordic hydropower plants and wind power plants.
"As the generation of hydropower plants decreased in the autumn of last year, one may forecast that the prices will not be low in the first quarter of this year. Forward contracts show that in the Lithuanian bidding area the average price this year can be slightly higher than the past year's price and range from 33.9 euros to 37.7 euros per MWh," said Virbickas.
NordBalt, a 450 km sea cable connecting Lithuania and Sweden was put into trial operation in February of 2016, and normal operation was started at the end of June, while LitPol Link is online since the beginning of last year.
