ESO will allocate almost EUR 2 billion for improving network reliability, resilience and digitalisation

Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius (ESO) will focus its investments on ensuring reliability and efficiency of electricity and gas distribution networks, network automation, implementation of smart solutions and effective facilitation of the market. The company is planning to invest EUR 1.919 billion for improving network reliability, resilience and digitalisation over the period of 2021–2030. The planned investments will be allocated towards the two core programmes – increasing network reliability and efficiency as well as facilitating the market and customer experience.

The 10-year investment plan published by the company details planned direction and objectives of investments, investment results and benefits projected for ESO’s customers and the distribution network.

Investing in network reliability and efficiency direction ensures uninterrupted and quality energy distribution via electricity and gas networks that are safe to the environment. Some of the core programme features are replacing overhead power lines with underground cables with priority on replacing power lines with a lot of interruptions and hazardous power lines, in forests, and solutions for improving current quality. The programme also includes reconstruction of old gas pipelines and replacement and reconstruction of unreliable elements of electricity and gas networks.

The company will continue to install equipment that ensures network automation and management in order to improve restoration time of energy supply after a failure. Additionally, the company is planning to implement state of the art and innovative solutions with an emphasis on seamless and optimal integration of distributed energy sources and EV charging stations as well as asset management digitalisation solutions. The company is searching for optimal solutions and is planning several pilot projects that, if successful, would be implemented as larger scale projects.

The second important direction is to facilitate market transformation and development and to improve customer engagement when selecting an energy supplier. A major focus is on integration of renewables into the network and on the development of flexible services. It is especially important that this transition is sustainable and ensures that energy efficiency targets are achieved and network efficiency is ensured.

The core feature of the programme is smart meter implementation. The technological solution, after it is incorporated into the ESO network, will ensure data accuracy and immediate availability while facilitating the market and consumers to create high quality services. Accurate and quick data exchange between the market participants and development of market processes will be ensured by the data exchange platform. This will create a prerequisite for competition between market participants and, in turn, for more varied and better services for customers which improves their experience.

ESO will finance the planned investments by using grants received from the electricity and gas distribution tariffs, the European Union and other grants as well as borrowed funds. Investment projects established in the investment plan will be coordinated with National Energy Regulatory Council (NERC). ESO’s investment plan will be updated and coordinated with NERC according to the procedure set out in the legal acts. Until now, the plan was updated annually but, starting from 2022, it will be updated every two years.