Baltic offshore wind plans advancing despite supply chain, grid connection challenges

Plans to develop offshore wind in the Baltic Sea promise much-needed developments as the region strives to strengthen its energy security. This is despite long permitting procedures, supply chain constraints and grid connection bottlenecks.

The offshore wind potential in the Baltic Sea region is estimated to be 94 GW of capacity by 2050 - almost five times the current installed capacity across the whole of the EU, which amounts to just about 20 GW, according to estimates from industry association WindEurope.

Two years ago, eight governments around the Baltic Sea signed the Marienborg Declaration, agreeing to cooperate closely to achieve these goals.

Developing offshore wind projects has become a matter of national security, government and industry representatives told a Euractiv event on 10 September, as the region has depended on Russian energy imports for decades.

"For us, this transition is... not just the implementation of our climate commitments to decarbonise our economy, but also to ensure our energy security, which leads to our economic security,” Jurga Kasputiene, Deputy Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the EU, told the event.

"We expect a 5-to-8-fold increase in installed [renewable energy] capacity, with the largest shifts being offshore and onshore wind and solar,” she added. “Lithuania expects to have an offshore wind power capacity of 4.5GW by 2050."

Similarly, her Polish counterpart, Arkadiusz Plucinski, told the same Euractiv audience that Warsaw believes “offshore generation is instrumental to achieve the objective of energy independence not only in Poland but also in the entire EU” and that Poland expects to install some 6 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 18 GW by 2040.

Lithuania succeeded in awarding its first 700 MW tender this year, while a second auction to award an additional 700 MW failed as the tender did not secure a minimum number of bidders and will be repeated later this year. Meanwhile, Poland is preparing its first contract-for-difference auctions for offshore projects next year.

Supply chain and connectivity

"The Baltic Sea region will be key for moving on with the energy transition in a way which will foster collaboration and has security of supply and will help make energy prices affordable,” said Łukasz Koliński, acting director at the European Commission’s energy department.

Koliński added that the region will have to overcome important challenges if it wants to realise its potential: “from supply chain availability, lack of human resources and skills, to still too lengthy permitting procedures.”

Poland has made moves to address these issues by investing in its local supply chain.

Vestas is building two factories in Szczecin: one for turbine blades and another for nacelles and hubs. Meanwhile, Baltic Towers is constructing a new offshore wind tower factory in Gdansk, with an investment exceeding €200 million.

Polish state-owned energy utility PGE says it wants to “support the development of local players” in the offshore wind industry.

“This is a long-term game; this is not something that is happening overnight, and from this perspective, the sustainable development of offshore projects will have a very positive impact on local business [across the Baltic Sea],” said Maciej Górski, COO at PGE.

But even with these investments, challenges remain. “We need more of these factories,” said Giles Dickson, CEO of WindEurope. “As the Draghi report said very clearly, the EU needs to put in place new financial instruments that will further incentivise more such investments in the manufacturing capacity in Europe.”

The need to modernise and expand electricity grid infrastructure is a massive challenge for the development of offshore wind not only in the region but across Europe.

“You can’t build a railway station without the tracks,” said Tahir Kapetanović, vice-chair of the board at ENTSO-E, which represents Europe’s transmission system operators.

Kapetanović also referred to the still-too-long permit procedures that offshore wind installations must face: “If you want to install a transformer, the lead time to create the cable and transformer is between five and seven years.”

“So basically, you have to order it before you have all the environmental and other permissions (…), which means you may not be fully legally compliant because you don’t have permission for investment.”

Building (cyber)resilience

As offshore wind farms strive to become an important player in Europe’s energy infrastructure, they also become targets for cyberattacks and sabotage – a topic where NATO has placed increasing importance with the creation of its Critical Undersea Infrastructure Network.

Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine has further highlighted the vulnerability of energy infrastructure, particularly in the Baltic region, and Lithuania is particularly aware of these risks. “We are making sure that critical elements of our grid, including software and control systems, come from reliable partners,” said Kasputiene. The country is also implementing physical security measures to safeguard its infrastructure.

Kapetanović agreed on the importance of resilience in energy infrastructure: “It’s always the key for you as an operator—how fast and how well can you restore the system function back? Resilience in grid operations is crucial.”

This article follows the policy debate “Media Partnership: Win-wind solutions in the Baltic Sea region” organised by PGE.

[Edited By Brian Maguire | Euractiv's Advocacy Lab ]