Busy year for Poland’s largest offshore wind project

PGE Baltica, the PGE Group company responsible for the Offshore Program, is completing another year of intensive efforts to build offshore projects, including the Baltica Offshore Wind Farm. Key agreements have been signed, contracts finalized, and decisions issued to enable the next steps in implementing Poland’s largest renewable energy project to date.

The Baltica Offshore Wind Farm construction is a strategic investment project of the PGE Group in partnership with Ørsted. It consists of Baltica 2 and Baltica 3 stages with a total installed capacity of about 2.5 GW. In the past year, a supplier of turbines, offshore transformer stations, foundations, internal/export cables, cable installation and connection services was selected for the Baltica 2 stage.

A series of important agreements for the Baltica 2 project

In April this year, PGE and Ørsted selected Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy as the turbine supplier for Baltica 2. Each of the 107 turbines ordered will have a capacity of 14 MW. Siemens Gamesa will also be responsible for servicing them and supplying spare parts for five years after commissioning. The contracted turbines will be supplied to the 1,5 GW project, which is currently the largest offshore wind investment in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea and one of the largest in the world.

A few weeks after the turbine supplier was chosen, a contract was signed with a consortium of SEMCO Maritime and PTSC Mechanical & Construction to design, manufacture and commission offshore substations for the Baltica 2 project. There will be four stations, each equipped with two transformers, to collect the electricity generated by the wind turbines before exporting it onshore.

Key components already contracted

Subsea inter-array cables will be manufactured by Orient Cable (NBO), and export cables will be delivered by ZTT and Hellenic Cables. A fleet of Boskalis was contracted to install and connect them.

A consortium of Navantia and Windar, as well as Steelwind, have been invited to work together on another strategic undertaking, which consists of the supply of foundations. The Navantia-Windar consortium will deliver 77 monopiles, the largest of which exceeds 100 metres in length and weighs more than 2,000 tons. They will be used for the installation of turbines and offshore transformer stations. Their production will begin in 2024. Steelwind will supply the remaining 34 monopiles. The schedule calls for production of these foundations to begin in the second half of 2025.

Thus, PGE and Ørsted finalized the contracting of all major components for the offshore part of Baltica 2 in 2023, securing cable installation and connection for this investment project.

PGE and Ørsted plan to complete the Baltica 2 stage, with a capacity of about 1.5 GW, by the end of 2027 and the Baltica 3 stage, with a capacity of about 1 GW, by the end of 2029.

A summary of the contracts signed so far was the Suppliers Day, which PGE and Ørsted jointly organized. They invited representatives of already contracted suppliers and Polish companies interested in joining the supply chain for offshore wind projects. The event at the PGE Narodowy stadium was attended by nearly half a thousand participants, who had the opportunity to participate in nearly 70 business networking sessions.

Support for financing the investment

In August this year PGE received approval from the European Investment Bank’s Board of Directors to support the financing of the Baltica Offshore Wind Farm. For each of the stages, Baltica 2 and Baltica 3, there is one tranche to be mobilized under the Project Finance formula for EUR 350 million, as well as one tranche per stage to be mobilized based on guarantees from financial institutions, banks or export credit agencies, bringing the total package to EUR 1.4 billion.

Five new locations

In 2023, the Ministry of Infrastructure issued further decisions on granting permits for the future development of offshore wind farm projects.

For future developments, PGE was granted five new seabed areas with offshore wind farms. The total potential capacity of wind farms planned for construction in the new seabed areas is about 3.9 GW.

The PGE Group was awarded the following seabed areas: 43.E.1 and 44.E.1, located close to the PGE’s existing offshore wind farm projects and the Ustka service port that is currently under construction; another 60.E.3 and 60.E.4 areas located near the Baltica 1 projects; and the 45.E.1 area in the vicinity of the Baltica 2 and Baltica 3 projects under development, which PGE has applied for jointly with Ørsted.

Independently of the Baltica Offshore Wind Farm, the PGE Group is working on developing the Baltica 1 project with a capacity of about 0.9 GW. It will be built about 80 km from the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea. The project already has a location permit and a connection agreement. The project has closed a full year of metocean data survey. In addition, a geophysical survey was carried out in March 2023 to map the bottom and the objects lying on it, identify bottom sediments, and identify places where life may be found. Sonar images were also taken to identify specific objects and geological formations on the bottom. Baltica 1 will be launched after 2030.

Source: PGE Baltica