Thousands of residents have spent the fifth to sixth day without electricity, counting losses due to spoiled food in freezers and other inconveniences, while dissatisfaction among politicians and people grows over why ESO did not learn from previous storms and prepare in advance.
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Meanwhile, ESO CEO R. Radvila states that trees have been removed and overhead lines replaced with underground cables over the past two years, but the storm that hit over the weekend was twice as strong as the one two years ago. In Lithuania, 11 thousand locations were recorded where crews need to physically go because power grids were cut off.
“The scale of damage is such that in some places the network will not be restored – it will be laid anew because there is simply nothing left to restore,” said the ESO head.
Could better preparation have been made for such extreme situations? Why are the cabling speeds insufficient and how much additional funding would be needed to accelerate it? Why in some areas, for example in Neringa, only 2 residents were left without electricity during the storm, while across Lithuania there were 268 thousand? How and where should residents and businesses apply for compensation? Finally, is there any thought of resignation?
About this – 15min interview with ESO CEO R. Radvila.
– Mr. Radvila, some residents have still been without electricity since Saturday, although five days have already passed. Please clarify the latest numbers: how many people are without electricity, in which regions, and why is power supply still not restored there?
– On Thursday, we have 62 thousand customers without electricity. The most affected regions are Anykščiai, Panevėžys, Kaunas. This part of Lithuania – central and eastern – was hit hardest by the storm, and we have the most disruptions there.
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In total, across Lithuania, the maximum number of locations where network outages were recorded is 11 thousand. There, crews need to physically travel and repair in order to restore the network. I think we do not yet fully know that number – we will only find out when everything is completely restored, because we have not yet reached individual houses or homesteads in the forests today due to outage repairs, as we are still working on the high-voltage network.
– You mentioned that there were 11 thousand locations with network outages in total. How many remain now?
– Today about 8 thousand remain.
– Five days have already passed, residents received messages that disruptions would be fixed by Friday. You also said that everyone would have electricity by Saturday. However, the restoration pace is not fast: on Wednesday there were 74 thousand without electricity, on Thursday – 62 thousand. Will you keep the promise to restore power to everyone by Saturday?
– In Lithuania, 400 crews are working – more than 1000 people are involved in fixing the disruptions. They have been working day and night for the fourth to fifth day to restore electricity. In the first 38 hours, we restored more than 60 percent of all disruptions, as the maximum number reached 268 thousand.
The longer time goes on, the fewer customers each disruption repair involves, because fewer users are connected to that line. Therefore, the pace is slower, but this does not mean that repair forces are being reduced.
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