Moscow, 10 April. One of the questions considered at the regular meeting of the Baltic Ring Electricity Co-operation Committee (BALTREL)* held in Moscow today was the issue of current importance for the European countries, viz. the synchronization of the Western European power systems and the Unified Energy System (UES) of Russia.

The representatives from Europe's major energy companies taking part in the BALTREL meeting discussed the current issues of electricity systems interaction, giving their conclusions regarding the further steps to be taken in order to establish a common electricity market in the Baltic Sea region. Reports on the practical aspects of synchronization of UCTE**, NORDEL***, and UPS/IPS**** were presented by Fingrid Oy President Timo Toivonen, Chairman of the Management Board of OAO "UES System Operator – Central Dispatch Administration" and member of the Management Board of RAO "UES of Russia" Victor Pauli, and Robert Paprocki of PSE.

Now that the Russian President has signed the package of electricity reform laws, said Victor Pauli, Russia has entered the practical stage of stepwise liberalization of its electricity market, thus removing the principal barriers to the integration of the energy systems of Russia and Western Europe. He also stated that the UES of Russia has operated in accordance with the European current frequency standard, 50± 0,05 Hz, over the past 15 months.

Other participants of the BALTREL meeting said that a lot of research effort has to be undertaken to solve the problem of integration of the Russian and West-European energy systems. This issue will be discussed at the UCTE General Assembly scheduled for May 2003, which is expected to take a final decision on performing a full-scale feasibility study of the power systems synchronization. This study involves an in-depth analysis of all technical aspects of the project, and measures to be used for testing the synchronous operation of the systems.

* BALTREL – Baltic Ring Electricity Co-operation Committee is a high-level advisory body for co-operation, studies and consultation consisting of leading persons from electricity supply industry in the Baltic Sea region. BALTREL gathers 18 organisations with operations in Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden. BALTREL final objective is the creation of the common electricity market in the Baltic Sea region, which can substantially strengthen economic development, reliability of electricity supply and the environmental situation in the region.

*** UCTE - Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity co-ordinates the interests of transmission system operators in 20 European countries. Their common objective is to guarantee the security of operation of the interconnected power system. Through the networks of the UCTE, 400 million people are supplied with electric energy; annual electricity consumption totals approx. 2100 TWh.

*** NORDEL - Association for electricity co-operation in the Nordic countries. It was established in 1963. Its primary task is to create prerequisites for efficient utilisation of the Nordic electricity generation and transmission systems. Nordel acts as an advisory and recommendatory body for co-operation between the Nordic system operators, and a forum for market participants and the system operators in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

**** UPS/IPS – Unified power systems of Russia, the CIS and the Baltic countries.