04 January 2024
The Baltic states need to unite for a common purpose beyond their borders—the enhancement of their energy systems with the help of smart technology. We must be smart and find more ways to cooperate on a regional level to achieve a secure, efficient, and sustainable energy future.
In a world increasingly driven by technology, the Baltic region is making strides with ICT to advance its energy sector. ICT companies are at the forefront, applying the latest solutions to bring the Baltics in line with global energy trends. These efforts are about meeting the needs of our people with smarter, more efficient energy solutions. Various innovative ICT solutions promote higher standardization, greater market transparency and balance. These enable strategic decisions to be made about energy generation, storage, and import, which, in turn, affect end consumers in terms of service security, quality and costs.
Silent help from network balance system
One of the cornerstones of modern energy sector is the network balance management system, which is critical for maintaining the reliability of our power grids. This system, supported by ICT companies’ expertise, works silently in the background, ensuring that the energy produced is aligned with consumption, thus avoiding waste and outages. It not only ensures network balancing at the national level but also facilitates communication with neighboring country electricity transmission system operators.
Such ICT innovations contribute to market flexibility and stability. For example, adoption of a centralized information system for balance management developed in collaboration with Tietoevry allows us to reduce imbalances between planned and actual electricity volumes, a step that is vital for efficient energy distribution. The system operates throughout the Baltics and is designed to ensure sustainable physical cross-border balancing in the electricity system.
Smart energy data management and combining energy sources in one
Smart energy data management is strategically important not only at the national level but also when considering sustainable business, as it has a significant impact on a company's profitability. Energy data management involves the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of energy data to make informed decisions regarding energy consumption and cost reduction. This enables companies to allocate resources for other development purposes, whether creating new services or improving existing ones. By offering cloud solutions to businesses that ensure the storage, validation, analysis, and reporting of all energy-related data and information, we can be a reliable partner in the ever-changing and dynamic energy market.
Distributed energy management is another area where smart technology makes a difference. It involves managing energy production from various sources and integrating it into our electricity grids. This reduces the need to transmit energy over long distances, saving costs and energy in the process.
Joint energetic future needs additional steps
The Baltic region is preparing for the synchronization of its energy systems with the Continental European network by 2025. This integration is crucial for the stability and security of the Baltic energy supply and will bring our systems in line with European standards. This also means a need for greater involvement of local balancing resources. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the flexibility of the energy systems in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. This can be facilitated through distributed energy management, which allows the aggregation of distributed resources to meet market demands and participate in flexibility markets, such as reserve markets organized by transmission system operators.
Despite these advances, challenges remain. For instance, the need for greater standardization across the Baltics is clear, as differing levels of technology adoption can create barriers to efficiency. Latvia, currently leading in standardization efforts, sets an example for its neighbors.
The role of distributed energy in the grid is growing, too. As we shift towards renewable sources, managing this distributed energy becomes increasingly important. Smart grids, capable of handling variable energy flows from renewable sources, are essential for a sustainable future. To handle that, smart ICT is essential.
There is a clear practical impact in these innovations across the borders of the three Baltic states. These are not just concepts but real-world solutions that improve our daily lives by ensuring a stable energy supply, enabling the use of renewable sources, and potentially reducing costs. The Baltics may not be the world's pioneers in energy innovation, but we need to rely on regional cooperation in combination with smart application of technology to achieve a safe and efficient energy future.
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