The Offshore Wind Port Alliance – comprising some of Europe’s largest offshore wind ports – has gained Poland’s port of Szczecin as a member as it expands its collaboration eastward.
The alliance, which aims to optimise the deployment of offshore wind in order to meet Europe’s ambitious targets, includes Port Oostende in Belgium, Groningen Seaports/Eemshaven in the Netherlands, Niedersachsen Ports/Cuxhaven in Germany, Nantes-Saint Nazaire Port in France, Humber in the UK, and Port Esbjerg in Denmark.
“Szczecin is a forward-looking port where Vestas currently is building factory facilities. The port is developing an area for offshore wind and has high ambitions for wind in general. That makes them a perfect fit for the Offshore Wind Port Alliance,” said Dennis Jul Pedersen, ceo of Port Esbjerg, speaking on behalf of the Offshore Wind Port Alliance.
The offshore wind market is growing strongly in the Baltic region and the first large-scale wind farms are currently being erected in Poland, which has plans to generate 74 percent of its power from renewables and nuclear by 2040.
As part of its aims to support the development of offshore wind projects across Europe, the collaboration between the ports consists of ongoing coordination and knowledge sharing, which enables them to optimise capacity between the ports to build wind farms more efficiently. For instance, a lack of space is a specific challenge the ports are working to solve together. If one port only has space for half a project, another port may have space for the other half. In this way, the offshore wind farm can be built as scheduled and the client will not have to wait for space at one specific port.
The ports have held several joint workshops and have worked on, among other things, digital solutions to optimise capacity at the ports.
