AS "Augstsprieguma tīkls" (hereinafter - AST), Litgrid AB and "Elering" AS (hereinafter - Baltic TSOs), in accordance with Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2195 of November 23, 2017, establishing guidelines on electricity balancing (hereinafter - EBGL) Article 62, jointly submitted a derogation request from the set deadline for connection to the European platform for the exchange of balancing energy from frequency restoration reserves with manual activation (hereinafter - MARI). This request was submitted to the national regulatory authorities of the Baltic countries (hereinafter-Baltic NRAs) on June 1, 2021.

The Baltic NRAs approved the derogation request (date of last NRA approval November 19, 2021), extending the accession deadline to MARI until July 24, 2024. The main preconditions indicated in derogation request for joining the MARI platform are:

• At least one cross-border interconnection (LT-SE, LT-PL, or EE-FI) must operate in the MARI platform to avoid isolating the balancing energy market of the Baltic countries from other neighboring balancing energy markets.
• Technical and legal preparations, as outlined in the Baltic countries' balancing market development plan, must be completed.

In the published MARI Accession roadmap on October 1, 2023, the transmission system operators of the Scandinavian countries and the transmission system operator of Poland indicated later accession than foreseen in the approved Baltic TSO derogation request for connection to the MARI platform. As a result, the Baltic TSOs have re-evaluated the plan of the Baltic balancing energy markets integration to the MARI platform and identified risks associated with it.

To reduce the risks of very low liquidity balancing market and exhaustion of balancing resources, avoid limited cooperation with Polish, Swedish and Finnish TSOs that all together would rise uncertainty for balancing market participants, high price volatility and challenging system operations the Baltic TSOs intend to connect MARI platform in October 2024. This information together with detected risks was communicated to the Baltic NRAs in a separate letter on January 29, 2024.