Nordic-Baltic Energy Conference 2026 Comes to Riga on 15 September
Nordic Energy Research and the Nordic Council of Ministers' Offices in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania bring the Nordic-Baltic Energy Conference 2026 to Riga on 15 September, with the full day built around energy security and security of supply. Registration closes at 17:00 on 9 September, and the programme raises a question worth following closely: which elements make up a resilient regional energy system, and where do molecules fit into it.
EVENTS
HydrogenLatvia
9/2/20263 min read
Riga hosts the Nordic-Baltic Energy Conference 2026 on 15 September, and the window to join it is short — registration closes at 17:00 on 9 September. Nordic Energy Research and the Nordic Council of Ministers' Offices in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are bringing decision makers, private sector actors and NGOs from across both regions into Brothers Kokari Hall for a single day built around one theme: energy security and security of supply.
A day framed by security rather than by targets
The framing is worth pausing on. Regional energy events in this part of Europe have spent years organised around decarbonisation targets, funding windows and technology roadmaps. This one is organised around resilience — how the Nordic and Baltic countries keep supply running under pressure, and what forms of cooperation that requires.
The opening session presents the Nordic Policy Roadmap drawn from the report Energy Security in the Nordics, published in June 2026 by the Economic Security Forum on behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Energy Research. That report set out 25 recommendations, and its central argument was blunt: the region already has the institutions and partnerships it needs, and the missing piece is translating political commitment into operational preparedness.
Speaking in that session are Karen Ellemann, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers; Antti Viktor Rauhala, Chief Operating Officer of the Economic Security Forum; Līga Rozentāle, Deputy State Secretary for Energy Policy at Latvia's Ministry of Climate and Energy; and Gert Siniloo, Director General for Climate Diplomacy and Connectivity at Estonia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Four sessions, one underlying question
The programme runs from 09:30 to 17:00 and moves through four blocks:
The Nordic-Baltic roadmap on energy security — moving from shared ambition to coordinated action.
Preparedness in local energy systems — what the Nordic and Baltic countries can learn from Ukraine, with Daiva Matonienė, Energy Attaché to Ukraine for Lithuania's Ministry of Energy, Artūras Kuliešas of Litgrid and Arturs Toms Plešs of Eurowind Energy discussing decentralised renewables, battery storage and local contingency planning.
Completing the Nordic connection — a grid panel bringing together ENTSO-E board member Kristin Lucie Munthe, 50Hertz, Ørsted, NKT and Northern Europe Energy Group, looking at cross-border infrastructure, offshore energy hubs and energy islands.
Emerging voices on regional energy resilience — three early-career researchers pitching policy proposals, moderated by Olga Bogdanova, Vice-Rector of the University of Latvia.
Taken together, the day is an attempt to answer a single question: which elements actually make up a secure regional energy system, and how do they need to fit together.
The molecule layer the agenda leaves open
Read the programme closely and the answer it builds is almost entirely an electron answer. Interconnectors, offshore hubs, battery storage, decentralised generation, contingency planning at municipal level. All of it necessary, and all of it good at solving problems measured in seconds, hours and days.
Weeks and seasons are a different problem. That is where molecules do work electrons cannot — storable, transportable, and able to sit in the system until the week the wind stops. Hydrogen and its derivatives belong in a security-of-supply conversation for exactly that reason, and the Baltic region is already building the infrastructure that assumes it: the Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor, a six-country project led by the transmission system operators of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany, is running feasibility studies through the end of 2026 under a €6.8 million CEF grant. Conexus Baltic Grid ran its first public consultation on the Latvian route this summer, covering a section of roughly 270 to 280 kilometres.
None of that appears on the conference agenda. That is not a criticism of the organisers — it is a reflection of where the regional conversation currently sits. It is also precisely why the discussion is needed, and why Latvian hydrogen ecosystem stakeholders have something useful to contribute in the room.
Why this room matters for Baltic hydrogen projects
The people on the grid panel are the people who determine whether an electrolyser project is viable. Connection queues, available capacity, cross-border transfer limits and the price of power at the point of consumption are grid decisions before they are hydrogen decisions. Under RFNBO rules, renewable hydrogen production is tied directly to how and when renewable electricity reaches the plant — which makes grid architecture an input to project economics, not a background condition.
While still challenged by high costs and low availability, green hydrogen is an increasingly viable route to decarbonising industrial processes. Making that case inside a security-of-supply frame rather than a climate frame is a different argument, told to a different audience, and 15 September is a good place to practise it.
Practical details
The conference takes place on 15 September 2026 at Brothers Kokari Hall, Lūcijas Garūtas aleja 8, Riga.
Doors open at 09:00, the programme starts at 09:30 and ends at 17:00, with networking breaks and lunch built into the day.
Registration closes at 17:00 on 9 September 2026.
Ole Aune Ødegård at Nordic Energy Research is the contact point for the event.
Source: Nordic-Baltic Energy Conference 2026