Partnership for the development of energy infrastructure in Pomorskie
Pomorskie companies and institutions that have a key role in the energy sector have signed the LIBRA (Safety and Development Line) Network Agreement. Alan Aleksandrowicz, Vice-President for Finance and Security, and Krzysztof Kaczmarek, Vice-President for Infrastructure, signed the agreement on behalf of the Port of Gdańsk Authority.
The LIBRA Network Agreement is made up of the Pomorskie Province, the Governor of the Pomorskie Province, the City of Gdańsk, the Pomorskie Special Economic Zone, the Pomorskie Metropolitan Railway, the Pomorskie Development Fund, the Port of Gdańsk, the Port of Gdynia, PGZ Naval Shipyard, the Pomorskie Development Agency, the State Forests, Rumia Invest Park and the company Energa-Operator as the investor.
This initiative was created with the support of the Marshal of the Pomorskie Province, Mieczysław Struk, and Beata Rutkiewicz, the Governor of the Pomorskie Province. Its objective is to establish a partnership to carry out investments in the construction and expansion of the power infrastructure in the Pomorskie Province.
‘The involvement of the Pomorskie Province results from the provisions of the Development Strategy of the Pomorskie Province 2030, which assumes undertaking activities aimed at improving energy security and supporting the green transition. This strategy promotes the development of renewable energy sources, the creation of energy islands, support for distributed energy, and the development of energy-efficient and intelligent energy transmission, distribution, and storage systems’, says Mieczysław Struk, initiator of the Agreement. ‘All energy investments are important to us, both in terms of improving energy security and the economic development of the region.’
The main objective of the agreement is to support the implementation of strategic network investments and to coordinate activities in the field of energy infrastructure development in Pomorskie, which should contribute to a faster completion of investments and an increase in the share of green energy in the region’s overall energy balance.
Access to green energy has become an increasingly important issue for current and future investors. A modern, fail-safe network increases the possibility of connecting systems that supply electricity manufactured by wind turbines and solar panels.
Due to the growing energy demand and the dynamic development of the region, the LiBRa Agreement has become a platform for partnership between local governments, institutions and companies. Its objective is not only to develop the energy infrastructure, but also to ensure a stable and cheaper energy supply for residents and companies.
The agreement covers investments included in the Development Plan approved by the President of the Energy Regulatory Office, the Investor’s Investment Plan and investments aimed at implementing local balancing systems (energy islands), as well as other investments carried out together with the investor.
OPS, or onshore power supply
How do the activities of the Port of Gdańsk fit into the assumptions of the signed agreement? The EU regulations assume that from 2030 passenger ships and container ships mooring in ports under the jurisdiction of a Member State will have to be connected to onshore power in order to meet all their energy needs while at berth. For this reason, the Port of Gdańsk is preparing for this investment. It has commissioned the preparation of the document ‘Analysis of the implementation of the onshore power supply system in the Port of Gdańsk (OPS)’.
‘The OPS system should be installed first at the Westerplatte Quay and the Baltic Hub terminal. The results produced by our research have made it possible to determine the quantitative and qualitative parameters of electrical points, define the system implementation options and estimate its costs. The analysis includes three main OPS development scenarios. Depending on the variant, the power supply for 2 vessels at the Westerplatte Quay and 1 to 5 vessels at the Baltic Hub quays has been assumed. Depending on the selected scenario, the system installation costs have been valued at between PLN 33 and 75 million. Due to the expected evolution of onshore power supply systems and the need for the development of project documentation, the number of connections and the estimated costs of their implementation may change. In preparation for the implementation of future OPS solutions, we have secured, as part of the recent upgrades of selected quays, a provision for the installation of a power supply system in the form of a cable duct. We also envisage this solution in the next upgraded and newly constructed quays’, said Alan Aleksandrowicz, Vice-President of the Port of Gdańsk.
But the Port of Gdańsk is also part of the Baltica2 project, currently entering the implementation phase. This is one of the largest investments in the history of Poland and the largest currently underway in the Baltic Sea. It shall provide green energy to around 2.5 million households. In addition to the construction of the offshore wind farm, a whole range of other investments shall also be carried out. One of these is the construction of an offshore installation terminal in the Port of Gdańsk, a project that has already begun. The terminal is to be built on an area of approximately 21 hectares of water and is to play a strategic role in the supply chain for offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea region. The construction work is scheduled for completion in 2026. This means that the Port of Gdańsk will contribute to the development of Gdańsk and Pomorskie as the Baltic centre of green energy.
Baltic 2 is developed by PGE and Ørsted (a Danish company specialising in offshore wind energy). The farm is expected to be operational in 2027. The project is worth around PLN 30 billion. The farm is to be located 40 km off the Polish coast. It is going to be equipped with 107 of the world’s largest turbines, each with a capacity of 14 MW (a total of 1.5 GW).
