10 September. During the meeting with RAO UES Board member Victor Pauli held in Riga in early September, Latvia's Minister of Economy Juris Lujans said Latvia was interested in continued cooperation with CIS integrated grid and the European Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity (UCTE**) in studying the prospects for integration of the CIS and Balitics' power grids with the TESIS.
The Minister stated that Latvia's position is unique: while it is situated in the area covered by the CIS and Baltics' integrated power system, the country will soon become a full-fledged member of the European Union. In this connection, the Latvian Government intends to expand energy cooperation with both Europe and Russia.
Mr. Lujans emphasized that access to the integrated electricity market will help Latvia improve security of its national energy system and guarantee stable supply of electricity to the Republic.
The Minister consented that representatives from the Latvian energy system should be included in the Baltics/CIS/Russia ad-hoc group studying the feasibility of integration of the energy systems.
The issues of synchronous interconnection between the East and West European energy systems have been extensively discussed over the past decade. Studies have shown that synchronous operation of the energy systems will bring many benefits to all electricity pool participants in the long term. Experts believe that the major benefits of synchronized energy systems will be more efficient use of the existing power resources and the generating capacities pattern owing to mutual seasonal (and even daily) interchange of electricity, and the possibility of mutual help in emergencies.
Technically, there are not any obstacles for interconnecting the UES of Russia with the power grids of the CIS, Baltics and TESIS, as has been shown by a series of international expert studies.
* TESIS: Trans-European Synchronously Interconnected System, which includes UCTE, the second UCTE synchronous zone (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, Macedonia) and the energy systems of North African countries operating synchronously with UCTE.
** UCTE - "Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity". UCTE members are Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania.
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