Month: April 2026

KNESS and Green Genius have started a partnership to provide operation and maintenance services for high-voltage infrastructure in Latvia.

A 110/30 kV substation with a capacity of 126 MVA has been added to KNESS Baltic’s portfolio of facilities under servicing. This is a substation node for one of the country’s largest solar power plants, with a capacity of 120 MW. The facility is owned by Green Genius – a company that has been developing, building, and maintaining RES projects in five European countries for 20 years.

At the substation, KNESS Baltic team will provide a full range of O&M services, including key ones such as scheduled and corrective maintenance, 24/7 monitoring of equipment status via the SCADA system, warranty support and spare parts management, and coordination with transmission system operators (Augstsprieguma tīkls (AST)).

The partnership between KNESS and Green Genius in the field of substation maintenance is based on a shared commitment to high quality standards, professional approaches, and a strong sense of responsibility in ensuring the stable operation of energy infrastructure. We combine the expertise and over 15 years of international experience of both teams in the development and operation of power facilities. Together, we are advancing the industry and accelerating Latvia’s energy transition.

For reference:

Green Genius is a renewable energy company, partly owned by EBRD, on a mission to empower sustainability for people, nature, and the planet. Operating across 5 European markets, the company drives decarbonization in the energy and transport sectors through solar, wind, battery storage, and biomethane solutions. With 20 years of expertise, Green Genius is at the forefront of Europe’s clean energy transition, aiming to reach over 1 GW of operational renewable capacity.

Three high-voltage substations of the international company Ignitis Renewables, which is actively scaling up green generation across the Baltic countries and Poland, have been added to the O&M portfolio of KNESS Baltic. The substation nodes, with a voltage class of 110/20 kV and a total capacity of 260 MVA, integrate some of the largest solar power plants in Latvia into the country’s energy grid.

Under the terms of the O&M contract, the KNESS Baltic team will provide a full range of technical and operational maintenance services for Ignitis Renewables substations, including: preventive and corrective maintenance work, testing of relay protection devices, thermal imaging inspection of contact connections of current-carrying parts, interaction with transmission and distribution system operators, performing operational switching, territory maintenance, etc.

Maintenance of high-voltage substations is a narrowly focused market segment with increased responsibility, where proven expertise and personnel qualifications, compliance with safety procedures, and protocol execution in accordance with state standards are critical.

KNESS Baltic has proven its competence in servicing power grids in the 20–110 kV range in practice, as there is:

• a team of qualified engineers with experience working with electrical equipment of various voltage classes
• experience in performing operational switching
• well-established work processes that meet ISO international quality standards
• own dispatch center for 24/7 remote monitoring of equipment status

KNESS continues to build an ecosystem of comprehensive services in Latvia for the development of renewable energy. Thanks to the group of companies’ more than 15 years of experience, we are consistently expanding our area of expertise and responsibility. In partnership with Ignitis Renewables, we are strengthening the sustainability of energy systems and the integration of renewable generation in Europe for a sustainable future.

For reference: Ignitis Renewables focuses on renewable energy projects and is part of Ignitis Group, the largest state-owned energy group in the Baltic States. The group’s portfolio of implemented projects includes 1.8 GW of green energy capacity. Ignitis Group operates in the Baltic States, as well as in Poland and Finland.

KNESS Baltic will implement a large-scale project in Latvia to build over 55 MWh of new energy storage capacity within the perimeter of solar power plants (co-location). The storage systems will be integrated into six existing solar power plants (SPPs) with a total capacity of 55 MW, which were built by the KNESS Baltic team in various regions of the country. The investor behind these energy projects is Volterra Energy Group – a producer of electricity from renewable sources and our strategic partner for many years.

“The development of modern energy storage solutions is one of the key directions of KNESS’s strategy. ESS is a versatile tool that ensures grid balancing and stability, enables the seamless integration of renewable energy sources, and enhances the economic efficiency of projects. With practical expertise and engineering experience in implementing ESS for various application scenarios in Ukraine, we are now launching such projects for the Latvian market as well. After all, scaling up these projects is about modernizing the power system and the industry as a whole”  – mentions Sergii Shakalov, СЕО of KNESS Group.

KNESS Baltic team is implementing these energy projects under an EPC contract (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) which entails responsibility for the entire project lifecycle: from engineering, design, and equipment procurement to construction and grid connection. The company’s specialists are currently in the design phase. At the same time, production is already underway and the delivery of energy storage systems and other necessary equipment is being coordinated. The facilities will be built using technological solutions from our partner HiTHIUM, one of the world leaders in ESS manufacturing. KNESS is the official distributor of HiTHIUM ESS in Ukraine and the Baltic countries, which allows for maximum optimization of engineering and logistics processes.

The future hybrid facilities will provide ancillary services for frequency regulation in the grid, supporting Latvia’s power system. They will operate under an arbitrage model, which involves storing electricity from the SPP during periods of low demand (or peak solar generation) and selling it during periods of shortage (peak demand hours). The integration of ESS significantly increases the economic efficiency of solar power plants by mitigating their stochastic nature, and also strengthens the power system as a whole by adding new balancing capacity.

We would like to thank our partner for their long-standing trust and our win-win cooperation in developing modern energy infrastructure in the region.