PKN ORLEN has started onshore geological surveys along the connecting route of its proposed offshore wind farm.
The work will help to delineate an underground cable route to evacuate electricity from an offshore farm to an onshore power station. The measurements will be carried out in the municipality of Choczewo, where the transmission system will be installed.
All of the wind farm’s power generation in the Baltic Sea will be extracted underground, both along the offshore and onshore parts of the connecting path. Onshore geological surveys would allow an optimum delineation of the cable link path.
The first phase of the work will include geophysical surveys carried out using the electrical resistance tomography (ERT) technique. Their results will tell the preliminary assessment of the ground conditions.
During the next step, specialized equipment will be used to drill wells up to a depth of several hundred meters from which samples will be taken for geotechnical analysis. Simultaneously, geophysical surveys will be performed in shallow waters of the Baltic Sea.
“The wind farm construction in the Baltic Sea is one of key projects bringing us closer to our strategic goal of climate neutrality. Despite the epidemic crisis, we are keeping up the pace and are progressing on schedule. By 2030, we will have invested more than PLN 25bn in projects designed to mitigate our environmental impacts, opening us up to new business models. By investing in green energy, we are also building Orlen’s position as the leader of energy transition in Central Europe.”
Daniel Obajtek, president of the PKN ORLEN management board.
Work on the planning of the cable link route has been contracted by PKN ORLEN to ENPROM, which is responsible for the design and development of the required infrastructure permit application.
The contract includes the planning of the connecting route both along the offshore section: from the wind farm to the coast, and the onshore section: from the shore to the power station, from where renewable energy will be fed into the national electricity grid.
As part of the preparatory work, PKN ORLEN carried out preliminary measurements of the seabed and environmental surveys of the wind farm area. On their basis, the company has already submitted an environmental assessment and is currently awaiting an environmental judgment on the offshore portion of the project.
The document will form the basis for the initiation of a building application procedure. Additional surveys and the requisite wind measurements to be used by the designer of the wind farm are also being carried out in the Baltic Sea.
Documents prepared with the involvement of the manufacturer would include analyzes of the configuration of the turbine and observations related to the approximate capacity factor. They would also have a more reliable project cost estimate and timeline for the project.
