“For the first time, an agreement has been reached at the company level between two operators (…) seeing that the main challenge to speed up our implementation deadlines is precisely experts, engineers with appropriate qualifications who can do such work,” L. Savickas told Žinių radijas on Thursday.
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“Today, at least two brigades from the Polish side should start working, which is perhaps a little more than 10 people,” he added.
As BNS wrote, the largest Polish distribution network operator “PGE Dystrybucja” will provide assistance to Lithuania.
According to the minister, the possibility that Latvia, also devastated by the storm, could help Lithuania is not ruled out: “I cannot say what has not been agreed upon, but we maintain contact with each other, and if we see that such opportunities exist, I would certainly not rule out such an option.”
According to L. Savickas, currently 400 brigades of Lithuanian specialists, or over 1,000 people, are eliminating electricity disruptions: “We hope that ESO will ensure compliance with its planned deadlines.”
However, according to the minister, the extent of the damage caused by the storm is so great that ESO and its contractors’ forces cannot ensure the desired pace of restoration work.
According to L. Savickas, to avoid the consequences of such storms in the future, the most important thing is to accelerate the so-called cabling – replacing overhead power lines in forested areas with underground cables – and to widen the clearings along power line routes.
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“Increasing the pace of cabling is a clear priority so that we learn lessons from this storm and, hopefully, meet the next storm having learned them and implemented the necessary works,” the minister said. “It is important to ensure that not only in state-owned but also in private forests, clearings do not become overgrown, that dangerous trees are removed in advance and preventively, rather than falling onto the network during a storm and disrupting supply.”
As BNS wrote, L. Savickas stated on Monday that instead of the currently planned 2,000-kilometer cable laying program, 6,000 km should be laid.
Renaldas Radvila, head of “Energijos skirstymo operatorius” (ESO), previously stated that by laying so many cables, about 280,000 consumers could avoid electricity disruptions.
BNS wrote that during the storm that raged over the weekend, one person died, four more were injured, and electricity supply was disrupted for more than 268,000 consumers. On Thursday morning, 62,000 consumers still had no electricity.
Due to the storm that raged in Lithuania over the weekend and significant losses to farmers, the Government declared a state of emergency at the national level on Wednesday.
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