The Auction For The Rights To Develop The First Offshore Wind Farm Off Of Lithuanian Coast in The Baltic Sea Is Over
Here’s the headline: Ignitis Group and Ocean Winds win a tender for a 700 MW offshore wind park development in Lithuania.
Who dis? See here:
To start us of, here are a few official resources:
Ignitis Group’s announcement on London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Vilnius; announcement by the Lithuanian Ministry of Energy (LT).
Official auction page on Lithuanian E-auction system (LT).
Relevant Law: On Renewable Energy of the Republic of Lithuania; govt. Resolution on the territories suitable for offshore wind development (LT).
Let us summarise what happened.
The Tender
The auction for the rights to develop the first offshore wind farm in Lithuania off the coast in the Baltic Sea is over. It was a tender for a 580-700 MW project, 30 km off the coast of Lithuania (see map).
The bid was for a 41-yr lease of the sea floor.
Expected output shoult ammount to 3 TWh per year, or about a quarter of total Lithuanian consumption.
Bidding took place on the Lithuanian E-auction system from Jun 7 to Jun 10, 2023. There were two bidders, starting bid was set at €5m with €5m step.
The Winner
Winning bid – €20m – was posted by Ignitis Renewables, a subsidiary of a state controlled Ignitis Group (LT:IGN1L).
The winner will have additional financial obligations, totalling est. €17,6m as a one-time payment for environmental and defence purposes, as well as yearly payments to effected communities, est. €3m/yr.
The second bidder is not publicised, media points to Orlen Neptūnas, a local subsidiary to Poland’s PKN Orlen.
Ignitis Group already had a signed MOU with a Franco-Portuguese Ocean Winds to develop a 700 MW project if the bid was successful.
Officially it is not yet over. The bid is now subject to various checks, incl. national security checks. Official decision about the winner is to be announced at the start of September, 2023.
Rejection on national security grounds at this stage, however, is quite unlikely, since IGN is 74% state owned and is to maintain a 51% share in the project.
Once the results are official, companies will aim to set up a joint venture for the project.
The Project Timeline
Communicated and allowed project timelines differ. Govt. prefers the project to be implemented by 2028, but the company has previously floated a possibility of the project to be done by 2029 at the earliest.
However, the law allows for 6yr development, construction permit is to be aquired in 3yrs.
Thus overall timeline is pointing to the estimated project end date by 2030.
In case You are wondering, why is this posted on an obscure personal website – it is because I do this on my own spare time. I only have enough of it to write this and not to deal with the rest of it.
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