Green Business and Innovation by Norway Grants

From Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to the Norway Grants — Polish-Norwegian cooperation in the green technology sector is reaching an unprecedented scale, combining Norwegian know-how with Poland’s transformation potential

When, in May 2025, in the presence of Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon, Poland and Norway signed a memorandum inaugurating the fourth edition of the Norway Grants and European Economic Area Grants, the event was more than merely a ceremonial diplomatic gesture. For both sides, it marked the beginning of a new chapter in economic relations, increasingly rooted in the green transition rather than solely in traditional trade flows.

The fourth edition of the Norway Grants and European Economic Area Grants provides Poland with a record sum of almost PLN 4 billion (€925 million), i.e. 25 per cent of the total funding allocated to the 15 beneficiary countries.

This is more than ever before, and more than any other country receives. Yet, the volume of funding itself is only part of the picture. More important is its direction: the vast majority of programmes focus on innovation, the green transition and climate, where Norway has spent decades building a technological advantage, which Poland can now absorb in a deliberate and systematic manner.

Poland and Norway are economies with surprisingly complementary energy transition profiles. Norway has one of the world’s most advanced renewable-based energy systems; 95 per cent of the electricity it generates already comes from hydropower plants, with the associated costs at record-low levels.

This is a unique foundation upon which an engineering and institutional culture developed over decades, subsequently translating into the global expansion of Norwegian technology companies in the offshore, hydrogen and energy storage sectors.

Poland is at the opposite end of the spectrum, with its still substantial dependence on coal, enormous transformation potential, a rapidly growing number of RES installations and — crucially — a growing class of corporate energy consumers ready to enter into long-term contracts for green electricity.

It is precisely this asymmetry that underpins a partnership which, over the past two years, has accelerated at a pace not seen for years.

Green technologies, the offshore wind sector and the hydrogen sector are key areas of support provided by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency’s Foreign Trade Office in Oslo in Polish-Norwegian relations. Currently, these priorities also include carbon capture and sustainable construction, two further areas in which both sides are seeking common ground.

No Norwegian company has become more deeply embedded in Poland’s energy transition than Statkraft, a company wholly owned by the Norwegian state and Europe’s largest renewable energy producer. Statkraft has been operating in Poland since 2018. Over a seven-year period, with minimal publicity, it nevertheless established a vital market instrument for funding new RES installations: a portfolio of long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

The model is simple to describe, but revolutionary in its impact: Statkraft enters into multi-year contracts with renewable energy producers, guaranteeing them a fixed purchase price, while simultaneously reselling that energy to large corporate consumers seeking cost stability and the ability to report progress on decarbonisation. For a market that for years relied exclusively on government subsidies and auctions, this represents a paradigm shift.

The first investment in Poland operating under a PPA concluded with Statkraft is Econergy UK’s photovoltaic installation in Resko, which represented an important milestone while also being a pioneering project implemented without government subsidies and financed entirely on the basis of grid parity. Since then, Statkraft’s portfolio has grown exponentially. Cooperation between Statkraft and the Danish company Better Energy, which develops photovoltaic farms in Poland, has continued since 2021. Today, the partnership encompasses four installations in total, enabling Statkraft to source 150 GWh of green energy from Better Energy annually.

On the consumer side, the Norwegian group’s client list in Poland has become a map of Polish industry undergoing decarbonisation: CMC Poland, a modern steelworks, secured the price of electricity from renewable sources through three PPAs with Statkraft, with a combined volume of up to 400 GWh per year.

Other customers include Air Liquide, for which the contract with Statkraft was its first PPA, and, in the telecommunications sector, the operator Play, which has just expanded and extended its contract until 2037, nearly doubling the contracted volume to 51 GWh per year.

Play intends to reduce its own carbon dioxide emissions by 60 and 90 per cent by 2030 and 2050, respectively. Long-term PPAs with Statkraft are a key instrument for achieving these targets.

Today, under long-term agreements, Statkraft manages a growing portfolio of wind and photovoltaic assets in Poland with a combined capacity of 750 MW. That is more than the capacity managed by some domestic energy groups.

While Statkraft represents Norway’s contribution to the corporate PPA market, Equinor, the other strategic Norwegian player in the Polish market, brings something different: experience in delivering some of the world’s most capital-intensive offshore wind projects and the ability to secure financing for projects that would be beyond the reach of most developers.

Bałtyk 2 and Bałtyk 3 are two offshore wind farms being developed by Equinor and Polenergia in Poland’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Baltic Sea. They are among the largest infrastructure projects in Poland’s history, with a combined capacity of 1,440 MW and a total investment value estimated at approximately PLN 27 billion (€6.28 billion). The investment decision was taken in May 2025, and onshore works commenced just a few weeks later.

Norway’s contribution to the project extends far beyond capital. As the Polish side emphasises, Equinor brings extensive experience in delivering large-scale offshore projects, while Polenergia provides knowledge of the Polish market, procedures and regulations. This synergy is highly tangible. The scale makes it even more tangible: the projects are equipped with 100 Siemens Gamesa SG 14-236 DD turbines, while monopile installation was completed in the first half of 2026.

Equinor is actively integrating Polish companies into the project’s supply chain. Supplier meetings have already attracted more than 300 domestic companies, several of which have been contracted as Tier 1 suppliers. This is a model of know-how transfer that the Norwegian offshore industry applied in its domestic market for decades, and which it is now offering to Poland.

In parallel, the two companies are developing the Bałtyk 1 project, with a planned capacity of up to 1,560 MW, which is expected to participate in the offshore wind auction. The three Bałtyk 1, 2 and 3 offshore wind farms being developed by Equinor and Polenergia will have a combined installed capacity of 3,000 MW and will supply green energy to more than 4 million households in Poland.

Alongside commercial projects, a structural institutional dialogue is under way, with the Norway Grants serving as its instrument. The programme is partnership-based and is agreed and implemented in cooperation with institutions from the donor states, in particular the Norwegian Environment Agency, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, the Icelandic Centre for Research and Innovation Norway. The cooperation combines financial support with the transfer of knowledge, experience and good practices.

This mechanism of combining funding with expertise is what distinguishes the Norway Grants from typical EU grants. In the previous 2014–2021 edition, Poland received EUR 809.3 million, and nearly 1,800 projects were implemented, including 683 in cooperation with partners from the donor states.

The current, fourth edition establishes new priorities. As many as three of the eight programmes implemented in Poland under the Norway Grants are dedicated to innovation and the development of cooperation in green technologies.

The Green Transition Programme, with a budget of approximately PLN 800 million, will support Polish local authorities in building resilience to climate change. The development of clean energy is another important component, including geothermal energy, the construction of modern energy storage facilities, and carbon capture technologies.

The Green Business and Innovation Programme, implemented by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, has a budget of PLN 236 million and is targeted directly at SMEs implementing environmental technologies, with partnerships with Norwegian entities additionally incentivised.

Meanwhile, the Applied Research and Innovation Programme of the National Centre for Research and Development — worth PLN 343 million — supports bilateral research and innovation projects involving Polish and Norwegian institutions.

One of the most technologically advanced areas of Polish-Norwegian cooperation is carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). This technology is crucial to the decarbonisation of sectors in which renewable energy cannot easily provide a substitute, namely the cement, steel and chemical industries, as well as coal-fired power generation.

Norway is developing technologies to reduce CO₂ emissions by separating carbon dioxide from industrial and energy-sector sources and subsequently storing it safely underground. In the coming years, Poland intends to make extensive use of the global best practices in CCUS technology to reduce emissions arising from its international commitments.

A meeting between Deputy Minister for Climate Krzysztof Bolesta and Norwegian Ambassador Øystein Bø in September 2025 formalised these ambitions; Norwegian experience is to be utilised within the Green Transition Programme to strengthen administrative and institutional capacity and raise awareness of CCUS technologies.

Poland also has a unique advantage: among the countries in the region, it has the best geological conditions for carbon dioxide sequestration, while also possessing the third-largest potential in the entire European Union. Unlocking this potential, however, requires technology, regulation and institutional know-how that Norway can provide thanks to its many years of practical experience with CCUS in the North Sea.

Norwegian green technologies encompass far more than offshore wind farms and CO₂ storage. They comprise an entire innovation ecosystem: advanced floating-foundation technologies for offshore wind farms, digital twins and remote monitoring of installations, subsea robotics, energy management systems and energy storage.

For Polish companies already active in Norway’s shipbuilding industry, the offshore wind sector offers an opportunity to become trusted technology partners for Norwegian and global investors.

Evidence that this transfer is already taking place can be seen in Hitachi Energy, which is responsible for constructing the onshore substations for Bałtyk 2 and 3 and manufactures a significant proportion of the advanced equipment for these substations at its facilities in Łódź, while the Polish company Erbud is a key subcontractor for the construction works.

Kristin Hansen, Chair of the Financial Mechanism Committee, neatly summed up the core of the relationship: ‘The programmes planned under the fourth edition of the Norway and EEA Grants will contribute to making Poland greener, more prosperous and more resilient, while at the same time strengthening relations between our countries.’

This sentence can be read as a diplomatic formula. It can, however, also be read as an accurate description of reality: the Polish-Norwegian partnership in the green technology sector is entering a phase in which it is no longer solely about capital transfers or project financing.

It is about building lasting institutional and educational links and value chains — ones that will continue to function long after the final grant funding has been accounted for. In this sense, Poland and Norway are creating something that could become a model partnership for the whole of Central Europe as it seeks to pursue the green transition without sacrificing industrial competitiveness.