Polish Offshore Wind Takes Back Seat to Shale Gas

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Europe (Galway, Ireland)--Poland's offshore wind sector has been dealt a major blow by the country's Ministry of Environment, which is opposing most of the 40 proposed windfarm locations. The ministry says the proposed sites interfere with future shale gas exploitation.

For almost a year, the Infrastructure Ministry has been reviewing applications from 59 investors that are competing for 40 projects in the Polish Baltic Sea. The investors, who have a potential 20,000 megawatts (MW) in pipeline work, now face a serious threat to progress. According to the Ministry of Environment and the State Geological Institute, most of the area is rich in shale gas and reserves of aggregates and therefore should be excluded from offshore wind activity.

Two months ago, the Environment Ministry said it had no objections to the locations of the proposed offshore windfarms, but the State Geological Institute interjected that the Polish Baltic shelf contains between 14.8 billion to 371 billion cubic metres of shale gas.

The government has given the green light to five projects, with a total capacity of 4,500 MW, three of which have been awarded to the country's largest power utility, Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) (Warsaw, Poland). The awarded companies will have six years to build the windfarms, with an option for a two-year extension. However, the government is forestalling any further offshore projects until it better understands its shale-gas potential and the potential of offshore windfarms to obstruct shale-gas exploitation.

"It is possible to designate areas for windfarms where no conflict will occur," said Mikolaj Karpinski, a spokesman for the Infrastructure Ministry. The actual potential of the Polish Baltic Sea lies between 7,100 and 17,900 MW, producing 34.7 and 83.3 terawatt hours, respectively, depending on the capacity of the turbines used, according to the Polish Maritime Institute.

Poland, which produces about 90% of its energy from coal, is obliged by the European Union to increase the share of renewables in its energy mix to 15.5% by 2020. Poland currently has no operational offshore windfarms.

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