Over 4 GW under one O&M operator. Poland's asset management market matures as offshore service contracts approach

Electrum has passed 4 GW of renewable generation capacity under operations and maintenance (O&M) contracts in Poland, up from just under 3 GW a year earlier. For asset owners, the figure signals a consolidating services market in which operational management is increasingly procured separately from construction. For the maritime sector, the timing matters more than the number: the asset management model that matured on Polish onshore wind and solar portfolios will face its first offshore test within quarters, as the country's first Baltic wind farms move from installation to operation.

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25 august 2026   |   12:18   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Ed White Images / pixabay

A service line detaching from EPC

The Białystok-based group reports that a growing share of its service portfolio consists of installations built by other general contractors, whose owners subsequently transferred long-term care of the assets to Electrum. That shift is structurally significant. O&M is ceasing to be an add-on to a construction contract and becoming a standalone product, selected on operational track record rather than on who erected the plant.

- We are no longer talking purely about servicing. We are talking about partnership and comprehensive operational management of the asset, its availability, security, performance and risk. We want not only to react to problems but to prevent them ever more effectively and to protect the value of the assets entrusted to us over the long term - says Izabela Mielniczuk, O&M Director at Electrum.

The model rests on pairing field engineering with a digital layer. Electrum's proprietary SCADA system EMACS aggregates real-time data from installations, while an in-house dispatch centre provides round-the-clock supervision and response to events affecting generation. The offer now extends to advanced diagnostics, cybersecurity, grid compliance and 24-hour dispatch services for energy storage.

Offshore economics change the equation

For readers on the maritime side of the energy transition, the relevant point is what onshore O&M announcements do not yet contain. The operational phase of Polish offshore wind is only now beginning, and with it an entirely new services market. At sea, O&M typically accounts for around a quarter of lifetime energy costs according to industry estimates, well above onshore levels. The cost base includes crew transfer vessels, weather windows constraining turbine access, spare parts logistics routed through service ports, and working-at-height and over-water safety regimes that land-based servicing does not encounter.

At the same time, part of the onshore toolkit transfers directly: remote SCADA monitoring, data-driven failure prediction, permanent dispatch supervision and cybersecurity of control systems. An offshore wind farm is critical infrastructure in system terms, and recent months on the Baltic, from satellite navigation jamming to heightened activity around subsea infrastructure, have only raised the weight of that layer for operators and insurers alike.

Łeba and Ustka: the service bases taking shape

The market in question already has addresses. Baltic Power, the roughly 1.1 GW joint venture of Orlen and Northland Power, is establishing its service base in the port of Łeba, from which the 76 turbines of Poland's first offshore wind farm will be operated for decades. PGE and Ørsted, having completed the installation of all monopile foundations for Baltica 2 in August (1,498 MW, 107 turbines, generation planned from 2027), are developing their operations and maintenance hub in Ustka. Each base translates into dozens of permanent technician, coordinator and vessel crew positions, and into multi-year contracts covering maintenance, diagnostics and logistics.

The open question is how much of that work Polish companies will capture. During construction, local content in Polish offshore wind concentrated on foundations, cabling and port services. The operational phase runs 25 to 30 years and exceeds construction in lifetime value, while entry barriers for domestic O&M providers, though real, are lower than in turbine manufacturing. Dispatch, digital and servicing competences already exist in Poland, as a 4 GW portfolio demonstrates. The missing links are offshore certification under GWO standards, service vessel tonnage and operating experience in the offshore regime.

Consolidation onshore, an opening offshore

Electrum's portfolio growth from 3 GW to over 4 GW in a year indicates that the services market is consolidating faster than new capacity is being added, with asset owners increasingly separating the decision to build from the decision on long-term operation. If the same mechanism takes hold at sea, service contracts for Polish offshore farms will be contested not only by turbine manufacturers' service arms and established western operators, but also by domestic firms with dispatch and digital capabilities built onshore. For Polish service ports, for yards building crew transfer vessels and for training centres, the operational phase is likely to be the most durable stream of work the energy transition leaves on the Baltic coast.

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