CIP and Ignitis win Estonia's 1.4GW offshore wind tender with sole bid

Global renewables investor Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Lithuanian state utility Ignitis have secured rights to build up to 1.4GW of offshore wind in Estonia’s inaugural offshore wind auction. 

by Orlando Jenkinson 14 December 2023

Ruhnu Island in Estonia's Baltic Sea (pic credit: Toomas Tuul/FOCUS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The pair submitted a bid of €1.7 million – the minimum asking price set for the tender –  for an offshore wind farm and the rights to the seabed in a 115km2 maritime area in the Estonian Baltic Sea off the north-west coast of Ruhnu Island. 

The Ignitis Group-CIP consortium won the auction effectively by default after no other bids were submitted. 

Ignitis Renewables and CIP signed an agreement earlier this year to collaborate on offshore wind deveiopment in the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia. 

Ole Kjems Sørensen, CIP’s head of the group’s growth market funds, said the success of the joint bid marked an “important step” in expanding the group’s presence in the region. 

Ignitis previously secured offshore wind development rights elsewhere in the Baltic region, winning Lithuania’s first offshore wind tender in a joint venture bid to a 700MW project with offshore wind specialist Ocean Winds in July. That tender was also largely shunned by private developers. 

Darius Maikštėnas, CEO of Ignitis Group, said the success in Estonia with CIP showed further progress towards the company’s stated goal of developing 4-5GW of installed “green and flexible capacities” in the Baltic region by 2030.