Historic Shift As Baltic States Join European Power Grid (RadiofreeEurope)

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This coming weekend it will finally happen. The three Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- will disconnect on February 8 from the IPS/UPS electricity transmission grid that links Russia, Belarus, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The following day, the three countries will join the synchronous grid of Continental Europe (also known as the UCTE grid), which includes most European countries, from Portugal in the west to Ukraine and Turkey in the east.

For the Baltic countries, this move, known as the "Baltic Synchro," is a historic moment. It means that they, not Moscow, will be able to better manage and control their own electricity supplies. Diplomats from the Baltic region that I have spoken to see the move as shaking off the last vestiges of the Soviet era, comparing it to when Soviet troops left the countries in the 1990s.