OWC Advises on Geohazards for Polish Offshore Wind

OWC has identified significant geohazards that developers should address following a study of the geological conditions of the Polish sector of the Baltic Sea.

“We have identified numerous key potential geohazards such as boulders, shallow gas, geological faults, chalk and lateral variability of the soil conditions with some bedrock depth uncertainty. These are key hazards that developers should build into their site condition evaluations of prospective projects,” says Lukasz Sikorski, head of OWC in Poland.

The findings of the study will be presented at an OWC-hosted webinar on 4 November 2020, with the full report being published a week later on 11 November 2020.

This summer, representatives of the Polish government and wind energy industry signed a letter of intent on cooperation for development of offshore wind power in Poland. The goal is to install an impressive 28GW of new installed capacity by 2050. Today, Poland does not have any offshore wind farms, but aims to have installed circa 4 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and is working on a maritime spatial plan that is intended to add additional area for offshore licensing.

Overall, offshore Poland is covered by various kinds of sediments, ranging from loam through fine-grained sand and coarse sands, to gravel and stones, with sediment thickness varying between 50 and 100 metres.

“Although Poland can benefit significantly from a well-established local construction industry that is more than capable of producing foundations such as monopiles and piles, the geology expected at the Polish Baltic Sea areas indicates that the type of turbine foundations to be used here should be carefully assessed,” adds Sikorski.