Latvia drops out of cross-border offshore wind project with Estonia

Eesti Energia’s renewables unit Enefit Green has been developing the wind farm in Estonian waters with the purpose of developing a cross-border array, and last year had won global offshore wind champion Orsted as cooperation partner for the project.

“However, in March 2022, the Latvian Government declined Orsted’s application for the potential development of offshore wind in Latvian waters and with that halted the cross border activities,” Tuuli Härson, renewable energy communications manager at Eesti Energia, said.

Härson added that the Latvian government is nevertheless preparing legislation to hold tenders for offshore wind development rights in the future.

“Therefore, we are still interested to cooperate with the developer of Latvian site in the future.

“Currently Enefit continues to develop the 1 gigawatt offshore wind farm in Estonian waters.”

If all the preliminary work and planning goes smoothly, an investment decision for the Estonian part of the Gulf of Riga project could be made in 2025, she said.

“The procurements for turbine supplier and construction would have to be completed prior to that.”

Eesti Energia last week had said the planned 1GW wind farm in Estonian waters could cover half of the electricity consumption of Estonia and provide energy security for the Baltic state.

Härson added that in order to boost the share of renewable power, the Estonian government plans at reverse auctions in 2023 and will put in place a plans for additional reverse auctions for renewable energy in 2024 and 2025 for at least 1 terawatt hour.

"Regarding the Liivi [Gulf of Riga] project, we see the potential to participate in the auctions starting in 2025," she said.

"We also expect that there will be dedicated CfD based support system in place for offshore wind parks in the future and Liivi will participate in that auction."