Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Poland’s Energy Regulatory Office (URE) has concluded the country’s first-ever auction for offshore wind power, awarding contracts to three projects with a combined capacity of 3.4 gigawatts (GW).
The agreements provide for guaranteed prices for electricity produced from the wind farms, with the state making up the costs if prices are lower but receiving excess revenues if they are higher.
URE’s president, Renata Mroczek, hailed the auction “an event of major importance on the path of the country’s energy transition”, as Poland seeks to shift away from its reliance on coal towards nuclear and renewables.
18 grudnia Prezes #URE ogłosił wyniki pierwszej w historii aukcji na uzyskanie prawa do pokrycia ujemnego salda dla energii elektrycznej wytworzonej w morskiej farmie wiatrowej i wprowadzonej do sieci. #offshore
Szczegóły w komunikacie: https://t.co/sK42sqkIaz pic.twitter.com/Ar3QhGV0aP
— Urząd Regulacji Energetyki (@UREgovPL) December 18, 2025
The auction was seen as a crucial step in ensuring the viability of Poland’s nascent offshore wind sector. The country currently has no offshore wind farms in operation, with the first – Orlen’s Baltic Power, which did not take part in the auction – scheduled to come online next year.
It was also regarded as a test of investor confidence in offshore wind, after Donald Trump’s ban on new wind energy permits in the US and recent failed auctions in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Following its successful completion, Poland’s was the largest such auction anywhere in Europe this year, exceeding the combined total of Germany and France, note analysts at Pekao, a bank.
“Poland has shown that it is a leader in the development of offshore wind energy,” declared climate minister Paulina Hening-Kloska after the auction was completed. “Poland is showing Europe how to effectively build offshore wind energy.”
Polska pokazała, że jest liderem rozwoju morskiej energetyki wiatrowej.
Zakończyła się właśnie pierwsza, polska aukcja na energię z farm wiatrowych na Bałtyku, przeprowadzona przez @UREgovPL. Zakontraktowaliśmy 3,4 GW czystej energii z wiatru na morzu.
Wszystkie ceny plasują…
— Paulina Hennig-Kloska (@hennigkloska) December 18, 2025
In the auction, winners receive 25-year contracts for difference (CfDs), which guarantee a fixed electricity price. The state pays producers the difference if market prices fall below the agreed level, while producers return excess revenues if prices rise above it.
The mechanism is intended to provide revenue certainty and ease access to bank financing for capital-intensive offshore wind investments.
The three projects that reached such agreements in the auction were state energy giant Orlen’s Baltic East, with a capacity of 900 megawatts (MW); the 975-MW Baltica 9 project of another state firm, PGE; and Bałtyk I, a 1,560 MW project developed by private Polish firm Polenergia and Norway’s Equinor.
The Energy Regulatory Office (URE), which oversaw the auction, said a separate PGE project, Baltica 1, with a capacity of 896 MW, did not receive support.
The article continues below
According to URE, the prices under the CfDs will be 476.88 zloty (€113) per megawatt hour (MWh) for Baltic East, 489.00 zloty/MWh for Baltica 9, and 492.32 zloty/MWh for Bałtyk I.
Clean energy news service Gram w Zielone notes the rates will be indexed annually to average inflation, meaning that electricity from offshore wind farms awarded CfDs could be “at least several dozen zloty per megawatt hour more expensive” when they come online.
The planned dates for first power generation are 1 December 2032 for Bałtyk I, 16 December 2032 for Baltic East, and 17 December 2032 for Baltica 9.
Under the auction rules, the successful projects are committed to begin generating and feeding electricity into the grid within seven years of the auction’s close, after which the 25-year support period will begin.
Polish state energy giant Orlen has secured an environmental decision for a second offshore wind farm in the Baltic.
The decision paves the way for the project to compete in Poland’s first auction for offshore wind power production next month https://t.co/uEgkQvT4GV
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 19, 2025
Analysts at Pekao note that, thanks to this week’s auction, Poland has accounted for 39% of offshore wind power capacity successfully auctioned in Europe this year.
They also point out that Poland’s 25-year support period is longer than those offered elsewhere, such as Ireland and France, which provide 20 years, and that prices were higher.
“For comparison, the auction price in Ireland was EUR 99/MWh (as of November this year), while in France it was EUR 66/MWh (as of September this year),” they said. “A high price supports the likelihood of offshore projects being implemented.”
(1/3) W tym roku połowa aukcji #offshore w Europie – mierząc mocą zainstalowaną – zakończyła się sukcesem. Polska aukcja wyłoniła projekty o większej mocy niż każdy inny kraj, w tym Niemcy i Francja łącznie. Udział Polski we wszystkich rozstrzygniętych aukcjach w tym roku to 39%. pic.twitter.com/GZlbTpNEF9
— Analizy Biuro Maklerskie Pekao (@BM_PekaoAnalizy) December 19, 2025
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Jesse De Meulenaere/Unsplash
Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.
