Wind Energy – Auction
Poland’s Energy Regulatory Office (URE) has concluded the country’s first-ever auction for offshore wind power, awarding contracts to three projects with a combined capacity of 3.4 gigawatts (GW).
The agreements provide for guaranteed prices for electricity produced from the wind farms, with the state making up the costs if prices are lower but receiving excess revenues if they are higher.
URE’s president, Renata Mroczek, hailed the auction ‘an event of major importance on the path of the country’s energy transition’, as Poland seeks to shift away from its reliance on coal towards nuclear and renewables.
The auction was seen as a crucial step in ensuring the viability of Poland’s nascent offshore wind sector. The country currently has no offshore wind farms in operation, with the first – Orlen’s Baltic Power, which did not take part in the auction – scheduled to come online next year.
It was also regarded as a test of investor confidence in offshore wind, after Donald Trump’s ban on new wind energy permits in the US and recent failed auctions in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
The three projects that reached such agreements in the auction were state energy giant Orlen’s Baltic East, with a capacity of 900 megawatts (MW); the 975-MW Baltica 9 project of another state firm, PGE; and Bałtyk I, a 1,560 MW project developed by private Polish firm Polenergia and Norway’s Equinor.
The Energy Regulatory Office (URE), which oversaw the auction, said a separate PGE project, Baltica 1, with a capacity of 896 MW, did not receive support.
