ABB Sees a Power Transmission Ring Around the Baltic

LCG, Sept. 29, 1997--Asea Brown Boveri said last week that it envisions a transmission system ringing the Baltic Sea, tying Scandinavia to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Andres Narvinger, chairman of ABB’s Estonian subsidiary told a news conference that "The Baltic Ring plan is very interesting to ABB." Then he gave some examples of why it would work.

"If Estonia improves pollution control at its power plants, we could see Estonian power exported to Finland and Sweden," Narvinger said. He pointed out that Finland is a net importer of electricity and Sweden was in the process of closing its nuclear power plants. Estonian power plants are mostly fired by oil shale, which is not very clean burning.

Narvinger pointed out that Lithuania will eventually shut down its aging Ignalina nuclear power station, which provides 85 percent of the country’s power. He pointed out that there are conventional Lithuanian plants that are being operated at only a fraction of their capacity, and "these could be rebuilt and made environmentally acceptable." If that were done, he said, Lithuania could export power to Scandinavia on a Baltic Ring