NordBalt

In May 2015, in Lithuania’s exclusive economic zone, Russian naval vessels disrupted the laying of NordBalt several times. Lithuania’s prime minister summoned the Russian ambassador and protested what Vilnius saw as breaches of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The work went on, and the last of the cable was down on 9 June 2015.

The project had been talked about since 2004. Its purpose, as the NordBalt article puts it, was to let power trade between the Baltic and Nordic markets and to increase supply and energy security in both.

The link is 450 km long: 400 km of submarine cable, 40 km of land cable in Sweden and 10 km in Lithuania. It runs from Nybro in Kalmar county to Klaipėda, and Svenska kraftnät and Litgrid, the Lithuanian grid operator, run it together. ABB signed the €270 million submarine cable contract on 17 December 2010; construction started on 11 April 2014. Hitachi Energy, ABB’s successor, gives the rating as 700 MW at ±300 kV.

It was inaugurated on 14 December 2015, but a fire at the Nybro substation delayed the start of real operation. Test transmission began on 1 February 2016 at only 30 MW, and the first market trade followed on 17 February 2016. The cost was €580 million (some sources give €552 million), with €175 million from the EU. The article lists a 700 MW maximum alongside a 600 MW ramping restriction.

NordBalt was inaugurated five days after the LitPol Link to Poland opened, so Lithuania gained routes to Sweden and Poland within a week. Both mattered again in February 2025, when the Baltic states left the Russian-controlled grid; the story is told in the guide to Baltic synchronisation.