Orlen Neptun ready for the first Polish offshore auction

• As of December 17, 2025, URE announced the date of the first Polish offshore auction.
• Orlen Neptun is entering the competition with the Baltic East project. Piotr Ostrowski is convinced that the auction will take place.
• The company’s project portfolio director believes that there are many companies in Poland offering high-level services from further parts of the supply chain in the context of establishing Polish wind energy in the Baltic Sea.

Orlen Neptun is starting the Baltic East project for the first Polish offshore auction. The planned farm with an area of ​​approx. 110 km2 and installed capacity of approx. 1 GW has the potential to provide clean energy for approx. 1.25 million households in Poland .

Orlen Neptun: we are at an advanced stage of obtaining an environmental decision for Baltic East

Piotr Ostrowski, Orlen Neptun Project Portfolio Director, in an interview with WNP expressed hope that the first Polish offshore auction - scheduled by the Energy Regulatory Office for December 17 - will take place.

- We are on the right track, the scenario is realistic. We are working intensively on our first project, Baltic East. However, not everything is on our side - said Ostrowski.

- We are not yet fully prepared from a formal perspective. The key element is the environmental decision - we are at an advanced stage of obtaining it, we submitted the application last year. We have to accept this dose of uncertainty, which will accompany us until the moment of submitting the application to participate in the auction - he added.

The condition for the offshore auction to take place is the submission of at least three projects to the Energy Regulatory Office, but Ostrowski remains optimistic that Orlen Neptun's competition will also be ready.

Orlen Neptun: the participation of Polish companies in offshore construction in the Baltic Sea is extremely important

In a moment, teams from three Polish companies will set off to sea: MEWO, Orlen Petrobaltic and Geofizyka Toruń, which will examine the geological conditions of the Baltic Sea bottom in the area where the Baltic East wind farm is to be built .

- We are proud that these works will be carried out by Polish companies, and even more so because two of them are companies from the Orlen Group. Additionally, MEWO is an experienced company in the implementation of services in the field of development of offshore wind farm projects. This is still an early stage of the investment, we have many stages of work to order in order to finally determine the final shape of this project - declared Ostrowski.

An important aspect of investing in Poland's energy transformation is the participation of Polish companies in the supply chain. In the project of the first phase of construction of Polish wind energy in the Baltic Sea - Baltic Power, which is being implemented by Orlen and Canadian Northland Power, local content will amount to about 21%. The director of the Orlen Neptun project portfolio emphasizes that this is a very important issue for the company .

- I worked on this project myself for seven years. A few years ago, together with other industry companies, we signed a sector agreement with representatives of the administration, assuming at least 20 percent of the participation of Polish companies in these projects . We managed to implement it - said Ostrowski.

- This is the first project, a new market. The offshore law came into force in 2021 - and today we have the first project at the level of offshore installations, three more that have announced the final investment decision. We have, for example, new wind tower factories, offshore stations and space for development. We have managed to achieve a lot in these four years - added our interlocutor.

Orlen Neptun: Polish industry must be competitive in terms of quality and price

Ostrowski stressed that for the Polish supply chain to survive and develop, it must be competitive – both in terms of economics and production quality.

- We have natural areas of development where we should go to increase this local content. The most important element of capex in offshore wind farm projects is the prefabrication of individual components - said a representative of Orlen Neptun.

As he added, we have turbines and wind towers. We have a Polish manufacturer of internal cables between offshore stations, which is a leader in this area. However, there is the aspect of external cables that export energy from the farm to the mainland - these are hundreds of kilometers of cable. Another element is steel support structures - we have competences in Poland, but in our sector the scale is different.

Ostrowski noted that there are many companies in Poland offering high-level services from further parts of the supply chain, and the result of 21 percent of local content in the Baltic Power project was built by tier 2 and tier 3 companies and the exploitation phase, i.e. the main stage of the investment with a time horizon of 30-35 years .

Orlen Neptun: the installation terminal in Świnoujście will ensure safety in the region

On June 10, Orlen Neptun launched an installation terminal for offshore wind farms in Świnoujście . This is the first facility of this type in Poland, which will be the group's base for implementing the Baltic East and Baltic West wind projects. The terminal will also be used by external operators.

- This is an investment in critical infrastructure that increases the security - including energy - of our region. Without it, the construction of wind farms is not possible . We see great interest from Danish and German projects - said the director of the Orlen Neptun project portfolio.

The Orlen Neptun portfolio includes five offshore wind farm projects - the most advanced is the aforementioned Baltic East. It will be located on the Słupsk Bank, approximately 22.5 km from the Baltic coast.

This is an area directly adjacent to the Baltic Power offshore farm currently under construction (approx. 1.2 GW), a joint investment by Orlen and Northland Power , which is to start operating in 2026. The planned area of ​​the Baltic East project is approx. 110 km2 with depths ranging from approx. 25 to 40 meters below sea level.

In addition, the company has started work on Baltic West - a cluster of four offshore projects located on the Odra Bank .

We talked to Piotr Ostrowski from Orlen Neptun during the 20th Conference of the Polish Wind Energy Association, which took place on June 10-12, 2025 in Świnoujście.