Vestas closes deal for Polish offshore wind factory
Vestas closes deal for Polish offshore wind factory | Windpower Monthly
Vestas has finalised a PLN 170.5 million (€36.6 million) deal to buy bankrupt Polish offshore steel foundations manufacturer ST3.
It won an auction to buy ST3 – which owns a factory on the Ostrów Grabowski island in Szczecin, north-west Poland – in March.
The Danish turbine maker plans to use this facility to assemble hubs and nacelles for its flagship V236-15.0MW offshore wind turbine.
It is building a separate facility that will also be used for hub and nacelle assembly in Szczecin.
A Vestas spokesman said: “Vestas is working closely with our supply chain partners and local officials to further detail its plans in Szczecin and are proud that this will bring back business activity at this location with a positive impact on the local economy.”
Poland has awarded offtake agreements to 5.5GW of offshore wind capacity – with Vestas due to supply 1.1GW of this – and is gearing up to auction more in the coming years.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.