EU funding

The European financial support for the AS "Augstsprieguma tīkls" (AST) is playing significant role in the company strategy and development. Since 2014, the received and planned European Union (EU) funding under several support programs exceeds EUR 350 million.

The three most important EU funding programs used by AST are Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which supports energy infrastructure development and contributes to the achievement of the EU decarbonization goals for 2030 and 2050, the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), which will help EU Member States to recover from the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and supports coordinated cross-border and national infrastructure planning and financing, as well as energy projects and reforms, and the RePowerEU plan, which is RRF continuation and is solution to the global energy market disruptions and complications related to the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

+ Connecting Europe Facility (CEF)

Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is an important financing instrument of the European Union in the implementation of European infrastructure and the green course, which contributes the achievement of EU decarbonization goals for 2030 and 2050. The CEF program supports the sustainable and interconnected European network in the energy, transportation and digital field.

The CEF programme supports and provides benefits for people in all European Member States by making travel easier and more sustainable, improving energy security and independence in Europe, with bigger use of renewable energy, and facilitating cross-border interactions between competent authorities, businesses and society.

Since 2013, with CEF co-financing, AST implemented such European importance projects as Kurzeme Ring, which was completed in 2019, the third Latvian-Estonian electricity interconnection – completed in 2020, Riga CHP-2 – Riga HPP 330kV line project – completed in 2020, as well as the Baltic synchronization projects with continental Europe, which are planned to be completed by 2025. Several studies also were prepared with CEF support, including Baltic TSOs technical and economical common studies, related to the synchronization project - more information is available here.

More about CEF…

+ Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF)

The Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) is a temporary financial instrument and a central element of the NextGenerationEU recovery plan. It is expected to help EU Member States to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and make the European Union more stronger and resilient.

AS "Augstsprieguma tikls" is implementing projects with total RRF support of EUR 38,100,000 where EUR 27,000,000 is related for the construction of the national energy system dispatcher control and data centre, and the reconstruction of the existing territory, while EUR 11,100,000 is intended for the development and implementation of information systems and network management digitization measures. The agreement of the use and management conditions of RRF funding, between AST and the Ministry of Economics of Latvia, as the supervisory institution of the RRF energy sector projects, was signed on 2023 March 27. The RRF projects must be implemented by the May 2026.

More about RRF...

+ RePowerEU funding

On 18 May 2022, the European Commission approved the RePowerEU plan, a solution to the difficulties and disruptions in the global energy market due to Russian invasion of Ukraine. The RePowerEU plan is prolongation of the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), which supports coordinated cross-border and national infrastructure planning and financing, as well as energy projects and reforms. On 8 March 2022, the European Commission proposed an indicative roadmap to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuel resources well before 2030. European Council leaders on 24-25 March 2022 agreed on this initiative and asked European Commission to present a detailed RePowerEU plan, which was adopted on 18 May 2022.

The total RePowerEU grant for AST projects is EUR 73.2 million, where EUR 60.2 million is allocated to the synchronisation activities and EUR 13 million for the transmission network modernisation and related studies. The projects should be implemented by June 2026.

More about RePowerEU...