On 15th of January the Ministry of State Assets has provided us with a draft of an Act on Offshore Wind (full name: act on promoting offshore wind farm energy production). The act is currently in the process of public consultations, so at the very beginning of the legislative procedure and the wording may be subject to changes. The draft along with the accompanying documents may be found here (Polish version): https://legislacja.gov.pl/projekt/12329105/katalog/12656015#12656015.
The legislator declares that it recognizes the importance of the so called local content (particularly local supply chain) in scope of projects which will be carried out within Polish territorial reach. The authors of the act also believe that the incentives to engage local companies in said projects so far have not been appropriate. Therefore, chapter 6 of the act addresses the “Plan on participation of local materials and services”. The developers will be subject to additional obligations in scope of planning and reporting on the actual engagement of local suppliers in their projects.
The current discussions and consultations will most certainly address those issues and possibly let us determine if the assumptions and expectations of the companies in the offshore wind business have in fact been met.