A company owned by one of Poland’s most successful businessmen, Jan Kulczyk, has been awarded licenses to develop offshore wind farms in the Polish Baltic Sea. The licenses allow Kulczyk Holding – via subsidiaries – to proceed with plans to build two wind farms with a combined capacity of 2.8GW.
In addition, Kulczyk is seeking two more offshore wind licenses, Windpower Offshore has learned. If these are granted, Kulczyk would have an offshore development pipeline of almost 4.6GW, to be overseen by its renewable energy arm, Polenergia.
The first license relates to the almost 1.6GW Baltyk Polnocny project, while the second pertains to the 1.2GW Baltyk Srodkowy III wind farm. The latter recently received a grid connection promise from national grid operator PSE and is planned to come online in 2020. A grid connection application has been submitted for Baltyk Polnocny.
It is rumoured that Kulczyk is seeking investment partners to progress the licensed projects to construction.
Kulczyk also hopes to win the right to develop the 1.2GW Baltyk Srodkowy II project and is in competition with another developer for this license. Meanwhile, the company is appealing against the Polish government’s refusal to grant it permission to build the 600MW Baltyk Srodkowy I.
Environmental permitting appears to have begun prior to the awarding of development licenses by the Polish ministry of transport. Regional environmental authorities issued guidelines on offshore wind environmental assessments last year and bird surveys began in the first half of this year.
In September, a Kulczyk investment vehicle, Mansa Investment, acquired control of listed renewable energy developer, Polish Energy Partners.
