The Ministry of Energy reported the start of autonomous operation of the Kaliningrad Oblast power system

The Ministry of Energy of Russia has made a statement about the transition of the power grid of Kaliningrad region to an autonomous mode of operation due to the disconnection of the Baltic States from the energy system of the Russian Federation, reported the press service of the Ministry of Energy on February 8.

"On February 8, 2025, the power system of the Kaliningrad region began operating in an autonomous mode after Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia left the single energy ring with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus," the ministry said.

Thanks to timely decisions, the region was prepared in advance for the possibility of autonomous operation. Currently, the region's power plants have a total capacity of 1.88 GW. This is more than twice the peak electricity consumption in the region more than twice.

"In 2016-2020, 4 new generation facilities were built in the Kaliningrad region - Mayakovskaya, Talakhovskaya, Pregolskaya and Primorskaya TPPs [Thermal Power Plants - Ed.]. A large-scale project on construction and reconstruction of network infrastructure was also realized," the ministry said.

It is noted that the new power plants were built as soon as possible on the instructions of the Government of the Russian Federation.

The annual comprehensive tests of the region's power system operation in the autonomous mode conducted over the last five years have confirmed the technical readiness of the equipment to work independently from the "big earth".

Until 2005, the Kaliningrad Oblast had practically no generation of its own, with only a few small facilities built in the 1930s operating in the region. About 95% of the Kaliningrad region's demand for electricity was supplied from Russia via Lithuania.

On February 6, the government of the Kaliningrad region said that the region would switch to an autonomous mode of operation from February 8.

Earlier, on January 13, Igor Ananskikh, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Energy, told Izvestia that, in his opinion, the restoration of electricity exports from Russia to the EU countries is possible in the foreseeable future. He reminded that Russian electricity is the cheapest and for the Baltic States, Finland the cost of electricity from the Russian Federation is the most optimal.

Electricity supplies to a number of EU countries have been suspended since spring 2022 due to the impossibility of monetary settlements in connection with the imposed sanctions.