Ignitis Borrows EUR 60 Mn From EIB for its First Wind Farm

EIB has signed a loan agreement with Pomerania Wind Farm, a subsidiary of Ignitis Renewables for the construction and operation of a 94 MW wind farm

More wind farms will see the light near the Baltic coast in Poland. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a loan agreement with Pomerania Wind Farm, a subsidiary of Ignitis Renewables, which is part of Ignitis Group, a large-scale Lithuanian energy company. The EIB has agreed to lend PLN 258 million (approximately EUR 60 million) for the construction and operation of a medium-size onshore wind farm, consisting of 29 turbines, with a total installed capacity of 94 MW.

The loan will cover around 47 percent of the project investment costs. The EIB financing is supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the main pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe, in which the European Commission and the EIB are strategic partners.

Dominykas Tučkus, Board Member and Head of Business Development at Ignitis Group, said “sustainable development through the implementation of renewable energy projects not only in Lithuania but also abroad is a top priority for the Ignitis Group in its Strategy 2030. Through these projects, we aim to increase our competitiveness and make a significant contribution to accelerated decarbonisation of the energy sector.”

The wind park is located in the Pomeranian Voivodship, approximately 50 km from the coastline of the Bay of Gdansk, in the municipalities of Dzierzgon and Stary Targ. Works have already started in July last year, and the project is expected to be operational in the spring of 2021. The wind park has an expected capacity of 300 GWh of electricity, potentially supplying around 75,000 households with the clean energy generated by the project, on an annual basis.

In 2019, the EIB invested around EUR 4 billion in renewable energy projects around the world, of which EUR 945 million for onshore wind farms. The new Energy Lending Policy, approved by the EIB Board of Directors in November 2019, is likely to trigger more investments in this sector. Based on recent dramatic cost reductions, the share of renewable energy technologies will increase substantially. Wind and solar power, in particular, are projected to represent the majority of low-carbon energy sources by 2050.

The EU has agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels. In this context, the EU climate and energy framework includes a binding target of at least a 32 percent share of renewables in the final energy mix by 2030. This is likely to translate into a share of around 60 percent of renewables in the electricity energy mix by 2030, with around 30 percent from variable sources (wind and solar).