Offshore Wind Consultants (OWC) and Polish environmental consulting company Ambiens have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on offshore wind developments in Poland.
OWC, a subsidiary of AqualisBraemar LOC, is supporting projects that are already in development in Poland, but also projects for which the leasing processes have only just started.
“New sites dedicated to offshore wind farm development in the Polish exclusive economic zone have significant differences. Understanding these details is a key to effective permitting in the race to the grid connection and support system. Ambiens joins forces with OWC to offer developers the solutions to the most difficult challenges that we together have already mapped” , said Michał Kaczerowski , CEO at Ambiens.
In January, OWC was appointed as technical advisor for the 1.2 GW Baltic Power offshore wind farm, owned by PKN ORLEN and, as of recently, Northland Power .
According to OWC, Ambiens supports offshore wind farm developers through every stage of the life cycle: from site issues, environmental impact assessment and development through due diligence during M&A and financing processes to taking care of environmental tasks on construction and operational phase. The partnership will enable the two companies to pool their expertise together and offer an interdisciplinary approach to offshore wind projects.
“Offshore wind projects require interdisciplinary competence. Ideally, it’s a combination of broad global experiences and specialised local practical knowledge. The partnership between Ambiens and OWC is based on such assumptions. I am delighted that we can team up with Ambiens for offshore wind developments here in Poland, ensuring we can provide developers an even more robust service offering” , said Łukasz Sikorski , OWC’s country manager in Poland.
At the end of January, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda signed the Offshore Act, which allows for 10.9 GW of offshore wind capacity to be either operational or under development by 2027. By the end of June 2021, 5.9 GW of capacity will be offered via Contracts for Difference (CfDs). This capacity will be allocated to projects which are at the most advanced stages of development. Some of these projects could be operational by 2025.