President of PGE: contract with Orsted beneficial for PGE and the Polish economy

As Dabrowski told PAP, PGE in negotiations with Danish Orstedem has put a great deal of work and the negotiated agreement pursues all set goals.

"The negotiations with Orsted were conducted with surgical precision. We have the best possible contract with the most experienced company in the area of offshore wind farms in the world. For 50% of the shares in assets valued at over PLN 100 million we received PLN 657 million" - he pointed out.

PGE and Orsted will share shares in Baltica 2 and Baltica 3 farms projects, which are to have a power of 2.5 GW.

As Dąbrowski added, thanks to cooperation with the Danish, the Polish side will gain know-how and will provide benefits for the Polish economy in this project.

"Orsted specializes in multicontracting, procurement without intermediaries. This will allow significant savings at each stage of the project. With investment outlays of PLN 30-40 billion, the savings are estimated at several hundred million zlotys" - emphasised PGE president.

As he pointed out, the task of PGE, as a company of the Treasury, is to ensure that as many Polish companies participate in the whole process and that as much resources remain in Poland. According to the data, in Poland more than 100 companies are interested in the project. "There have been and will be meetings with potential performers to encourage them to participate in a project to build offshore wind farms," he added.

Dąbrowski recalled that the world leader in offshore wind farms – the UK competed with a local contribution of 20%, and today it is approaching 50%. "If at the beginning it will be 30-40 percent, we will consider it a great success," he said.

As the vice president of Orsted Offshore Rasmus Errboe said earlier, the element that contributed to the decision to enter the Polish market is a strong industrial sector. As Errboe estimated, Polish industry is already part of the global supply chain for offshore wind energy, even though there are no wind farms in the Polish part of the Baltic. He added that the investments of the Danish company will be a key impetus for the development of the Polish supply chain in the offshore wind farms sector. "Polish industry will compete not only on the domestic market, but also on a rapidly growing global market", said Vice President Orsted Offshore.

Orsted, in which the Danish government has 50.1% shares, is one of the largest offshore wind farm operators in the world. It has manufacturing assets and offshore projects in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the USA and Taiwan.

Source: PAP