Baltic Power, a company that is a subsidiary of the PKN Orlen Group in Poland, has won a tender for the lease of land in the port of Łeba for an offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea. A service port will be located in Łeba to service the investment, the construction of which is planned for 2024-2026.
The Polish company announced that it had won the tender in January 2022. An area of approx. 1.1 hectares, on which the base for the offshore wind farm will be developed, has been secured. The wharf will require reconstruction to bring it up to par to accommodate logistics operations, the release reads. The Baltic Power farm service base will support 3-4 CTV units for transporting service personnel. Each can take up to 24 technicians on board at a time, along with the necessary equipment. The base will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Construction of the service base will begin in 2023 and be completed in 2024 at an estimated cost of approx. PLN 20-30 million. During this time, approx. 70 turbines with a total capacity of up to 1.2 GW will be erect in the sea. They will be serviced by a fleet of ships operating from the port of Łeba. Construction of the Baltic Power offshore wind farm is a joint undertaking carried out by ORLEN Group and Northland Power. The investment area, with a total surface of approx. 131 km2, is located approx. 23 km north of the Baltic coastline, at the height of Łeba and Choczew.
– A service port is the heart of an offshore wind farm operation. Of all the locations we have analysed, Łeba is the one that best meets the key criteria, such as distance from the farm and potential for infrastructure development,” said Jarosław Broda, CEO of Baltic Power.
The service port area will include, amongst others, office facility, spare parts warehouse, and a workshop. In total, up to 50 people responsible for the maintenance and operation of the offshore wind farm will be able to work on site. The most important tasks of the technicians operating from the base will include maintaining proper operation of the farm through, among others, cyclical inspections of wind turbines.
Source: PKN Orlen