The Baltics Embrace MARI: A Unified Step into Europe’s Electricity Balancing Market

The Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, are now trading on the MARI (Manually Activated Reserves Initiative) platform, strengthening grid stability, enhancing energy exchanges, and accessing a larger reserve pool. This milestone reduces reliance on the Russian grid and moves the region closer to full European energy system integration.

What is MARI?

MARI is a European platform developed to optimize the use of manual frequency restoration reserves (mFRR). It enables the sharing of resources across borders to maintain the electricity supply-demand balance. The platform facilitates faster and more efficient responses to grid imbalances, reducing mFRR activation times to 12.5 minutes.

By joining MARI, the Baltics can now access a unified system that strengthens regional and pan-European grid stability, enhances operational efficiency, and lowers costs for market participants.

Key Changes and Impact on the Baltic Region

With MARI now live, the Baltic energy market is undergoing several significant changes:

• 15-Minute Bidding Units on MARI: Market participants can now submit bids in 15-minute intervals, enabling more precise and dynamic energy balancing.
• Transition Challenges with Nord Pool: The Nord Pool day-ahead market in the Baltics still operates on 60-minute bidding intervals. However, Nord Pool is expected to transition to 15-minute intervals by 2025, aligning with the faster response times enabled by MARI.
• Increased Volatility: The future adoption of 15-minute intervals in Nord Pool will bring more frequent and volatile price changes, creating both challenges and opportunities for participants.
• Toward a Nodal-Based System: The Baltics will eventually transition to a nodal-based system, optimizing resource allocation and balancing efficiency across local nodes instead of the current region-wide approach.
• Enhanced Market Flexibility: The shift to 15-minute MTUs on MARI allows participants to adapt bids and energy schedules more frequently, offering greater flexibility.

A Bright Future for the Baltics

The Baltic countries joining MARI is a big step toward a more connected and efficient European energy market. It gives participants access to more resources, improving grid stability and cutting costs.

With Nord Pool’s shift to 15-minute intervals still ahead, companies in the Baltics have time to adjust to MARI’s faster, more dynamic system.

This isn’t just a technical upgrade - it’s a move that aligns the Baltics with Europe’s vision for a flexible energy future, solidifying their role as leaders in energy innovation.