Seven companies have submitted applications for the development of offshore wind projects in two areas in the Estonian sector of the Baltic Sea, for which the application deadline closed on 28 August.
The auction for the two areas, named Liivi 1 and Liivi 2, is expected to take place in November or December of this year.
Companies Liivi Offshore, Aker Offshore Wind Europe, Viru Keemia Group, Sunly Wind, Edel Offshore Wind and the partnership between Ignitis Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) submitted their applications back in 2020, with the seventh developer being Utilitas Wind who submitted and last updated its application in June.
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The auction’s starting price for placing a wind farm in public waters is EUR 15,000 per square kilometre. With the Liivi 1 area covering approximately 77 square kilometres, the starting price for this area is approx. EUR 1.16 million, while the Liivio 2 area (approx. 115 square kilometres) has a starting price of approx. EUR 1.73 million.
The winner(s) of the auction will be the highest bidder(s). The process for obtaining a building permit, as well as the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure, will be initiated no later than 90 days after the announcement of the auction winner(s).
The winner(s), together with an expert group, will prepare an EIA programme, followed by the preparation of studies and an environmental impact assessment report. The permit procedure ends with the decision on granting a building permit, to be made by Estonia’s Consumer Protection and Technical Supervision Agency (CPTRA; Estonian: TTJA).
The TTJA is in charge of checking the compliance of all submitted applications with the provisions of the Construction Code before forwarding them to the relevant state authorities for feedback.
After receiving feedback from state authorities, the TTJA evaluates the applications in accordance with the guidelines set forth in the law and makes a refusal decision on applications that do not meet the requirements.