The Polish Energy Group (PGE) will use the harbour in Ustka to service the wind farms that it will build in the Baltic Sea. The port base will include a warehouse for spare parts and tools necessary for servicing offshore wind farms, berths for service vessels, as well as office and social facilities.

PGE Baltica will be responsible for the works to adapt the quay which will begin in 2024. The service centre will be operational in 2026, at the same year when the first of PGE’s offshore wind farms are expected to start operating. The company will build them together with the Orsted group north of the Baltic coast at the level of Łeba.

“Building an operations and maintenance base in Ustka is the most optimal solution for us. Thanks to the good navigational and technical conditions of the harbour, the appropriate depth of both the approach and the harbour channel, service units will be able to move from here to the area of offshore wind farms without any obstacles”, says Dariusz Lociński, President of PGE Baltica.

Like any power plant, an offshore wind farm requires constant monitoring and maintenance. Service vessels and a suitable harbour are needed to get the right technicians to the plant. The base will also coordinate emergency and routine maintenance work. Specialists will work there continuously – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Also, the Centre of Competence for Offshore Wind Energy will be established within the port of Ustka. The centre will be used to train specialists in the maintenance and development of offshore wind energy. New technical solutions will also be tested there.

PGE is currently developing three offshore wind farm projects in the Baltic Sea. First two- the Baltica 2 and Baltica 3 offshore wind power plants will be built with a total capacity of 2.5 GW. In parallel, the company is preparing to build the third project – the Baltica 1 power plant with a capacity of approximately 0.9 GW.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński