Further concession procedures for offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea
The Polish Ministry of Infrastructure published on 8 February 2022 announcements about the call on further applications for offshore wind farms concessions concerning three more areas in the Polish economic zone in the Baltic Sea.
According to the published announcements, the areas are 77.4 sq km, 121.3 sq km and 82.44 sq km. Interested parties may submit further applications for permits to erect and use artificial islands, structures, and equipment to construct an offshore wind farm in the area within 60 days.
The criteria for the assessment of applications are:
- Compliance of the planned projects with the provisions of the spatial development plan for internal waters, territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone.
- Permit validity periods proposed by the applicants, including commencement dates, construction completion, and exploitation of the planned farms. In the latter case, the detailed criterion is the degree of adjustment of the planned dates to the interests of the national economy, including the implementation of the national energy policy.
Other factors that will be assessed include the financing methods for the planned projects, the possibility to create a personnel, organisational and logistical base, the contribution of the planned projects to implementing EU and national sectoral policies.
Additional evaluation criteria are accompanying projects involving electricity storage, the efficiency of using the body of water covered by the proposal, projects using hydrogen.
As shown by the Ministry, the most important criterion for the assessment of applications is the method of financing; detailed criteria are – the possibility of implementation from:
- the applicant’s own resources,
- credit or loan resources, and
- public funds, including subsidies from EU funds
According to the National Energy Policy, offshore wind farms in the Polish Baltic Sea zone will have a capacity of 8-11 GW in 2040.
source: PortalMorski.pl
