Energy storage is key to both energy security and the development of renewable energy generation – and, as the recent war in Ukraine has demonstrated, it is also key to geopolitical stability.

As Lithuania prepares to join continental European electricity networks in 2025 – and disconnect from Belarusian, Russian, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian networks in the process – it is vital to ensure the country can maintain an electricity reserve and the possibility to operate in 'isolated mode'.

To do this, t#Energy cells, the daughter company of the Lithuanian state-owned group of energy transmission and exchange companies EPSO-G, is installing and integrating a system of four powerful battery park with a total capacity of 200 megawatts into Lithuania's energy system.

This is currently the largest project of its type in the Baltic region, and one of the largest in Europe in terms of both investment and stored energy capacity, according to Energy cells.

In April this year, €87.6 million ($92 million) in funding was allocated for the installation of the facility under the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility, and in June work began on the first battery parks.

The installation of the first battery was fully completed in September 2022 in the Lithuanian city of Utena.

The electricity storage system operator Energy Cells started testing operations of the first system of battery farms in the Baltic States in November.

"We will be ready to provide the instantaneous reserve service by the end of this year. If needed, we will be able to supply electricity to the grid until other sources of electricity supply," commented Energy Cells CEO Rimvydas Štilinis.

One IMPACT award judges said they were very impressed by the way this "scaled experiment in an important region addressed the critical challenge of energy storage".