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Climate goals - and finally get away from the Soviet drip: Why the Baltic Sea states rely on wind

2021-10-15T17:45:25.931Z


With a massive expansion of offshore wind energy, Poland and the Baltic states are trying to achieve their climate goals - and to gain more independence from Russia.


With a massive expansion of offshore wind energy, Poland and the Baltic states are trying to achieve their climate goals - and to gain more independence from Russia.

  • Poland * and the Baltic states want to use the offshore potential of the Baltic Sea.


  • In the future, wind power could have a significant share in the energy production of these countries.


  • This could not only help to achieve the climate goals - energy companies are also hoping for a future opportunity.

Warsaw - For the countries that have previously relied on fossil energy sources such as coal and oil shale, achieving the climate targets is a particular problem.

For example for the countries in the Baltic States.

You are also facing another challenge: You want to secure the power supply via the European grid in order to avoid dependency on Russia * and Belarus.

The good news for the countries on the southern and eastern fringes of the Baltic Sea: All of these objectives can be easily combined with the expansion of offshore wind power in the adjacent sea.

The dominance of fossil fuels such as coal (Poland), gas and the extremely high-emission oil shale (Estonia) is now to be broken through the increased expansion of offshore wind energy.

Poland: Wind power should fix it: Offshore plans along the Baltic coast

In Poland *, given the natural wind conditions, onshore wind power is less promising than offshore wind power plants on the Baltic Sea. The state has already begun awarding concessions for offshore wind farms and connecting them to the power grid.

The plans of the Polish government envisage further projects until 2030 with an output of just under 11 gigawatts (GW). By 2050 it should even be 28 GW. The Balts see a solution for their climate policy in offshore wind power. The Lithuanian Ministry of Energy estimates the potential at 700 MW in the medium term. With this output, up to 3 terawatt hours (TWh) could be generated annually - which corresponds to a quarter of the annual electricity consumption in Lithuania. By the year 2050, Lithuania could even achieve an output of over 15 GW of offshore wind capacity. The Latvian and Estonian governments have agreed to work closely together to expand offshore capacities. A capacity of up to 1 GW is planned. This could guarantee up to 20 percent of the electricity demand in Latvia and Estonia in the future.

“We are at the beginning of a long and challenging journey in which two good neighbors efficiently bundle their know-how, their resources and their commitment in order to improve cross-border connectivity and increase security of supply for the Baltic States.

In addition, it is undoubtedly another important step towards achieving the goals of European green policy, ”Estonian Minister of Economy and Infrastructure Taavi Aas told the

Baltic Times.

His Latvian colleague Janis Vitenbergs, who heads the Latvian Ministry of Economic Affairs, also emphasized the advantages of wind power.

According to Vitenbergs, offshore wind power production is particularly important right now, as the prices for fossil fuels have risen sharply.

Electricity and world politics: Balts no longer want to be dependent on the Soviet BRELL system

When it comes to electricity, the Baltic countries in particular have achieved final independence when the BRELL network connection system from the Soviet era is completely cut off.

While Poland is integrated into the EU grids, the Balts have yet to build additional power lines in order to be linked to the European system.

In the middle of 2019, Lithuania decided together with the European Union how the separation from the BRELL system should take place.

The costs of the lines required for this will amount to up to 1.6 billion euros.

The focus is on both the inner-Baltic connections and the connection to the EU, which is to be implemented via the construction of the second interconnector "Harmony Link" between Poland and Lithuania *.

After the completion of Harmony Link, the Baltic states will be connected to the EU via a total of three interconnectors.

The Baltic states are expected to realize their electricity supply completely without BRELL from 2025.

Poland and the Baltic States: State energy companies are saving themselves offshore

An important element of Polish and Baltic energy policy: the pursuit of energy security. This can most likely be achieved through domestic electricity production. Energy companies from the federal states are therefore particularly committed to expanding the use of offshore wind power plants. In addition, the usually huge energy companies are otherwise hardly able to produce energy cheaply. They own most of the power plants that run on fossil fuels. For the Polish PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna), offshore wind investments have almost become a question of survival. PGE, which operates most of the coal-fired power plants in Poland, sees its future in the field of renewable energies.

“We concentrate on renewable energies, we want this segment to become dominant in the PGE Group after the separation from the coal assets and the implementation of offshore projects. The offshore wind energy development project will be a tool to achieve zero emissions. In addition to offshore windmills, we want to develop photovoltaics and onshore wind energy, ”PGE Chairman Wojciech Dąbrowski told the Polish media.

The Estonian energy group Eesti Energia AS, which is closely connected to the energy resource oil shale, is doing similarly.

Like its Polish counterpart, the company urgently needs to invest in zero-emission energy sources, as the costs of the emissions could soon exceed the revenues.

In order to be able to part with these contaminated sites, these corporations are stepping up their efforts and investing in offshore wind energy.

Eesti Energia AS is significantly involved in the Estonian-Latvian offshore wind project with its subsidiary Enefit Green.

* Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-10-15

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