On Wednesday, 23 September, Lithuania’s parliament got its first look at the numbers behind the country’s biggest renewable energy project. It was a closed session of the Seimas Audit Committee, and the numbers were Ignitis Group’s cost-benefit analysis of Curonian Nord, the 700 MW offshore wind farm planned about 30 kilometres off Palanga. The analysis still hasn’t been published. What came out of the room, though, was clear enough: the government isn’t going to pay to get the project built right now.
“We can achieve the country’s energy goals by other means, without passing the costs directly on to residents,” Ignas Junevičius, Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Energy, said after the meeting, in comments reported in the Lithuanian press. He didn’t say the project was dead. He said it could still be developed on commercial terms “in the future”, if demand rises through electrification, industrial growth or large foreign energy users setting up in the country. He also argued that the seabed surveys and environmental studies already paid for shouldn’t be wasted.
Three options were on the table, according to reports from the meeting. The first is to freeze Curonian Nord until market conditions improve. The second is to bring in a neighbour, with Latvia named most often, and apply for EU money from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Junevičius said that route could cut the extra financing the project needs and improve the conditions for building it. The third is to keep going and recover the cost through higher electricity tariffs. The ministry rejected that one outright. Artūras Skardžius, a member of the Seimas Audit Committee, said there is no political will today to put that burden on consumers.
The deadline is the end of 2026, when the energy and finance ministries have to settle on a position. Formally, the final call belongs to Ignitis, which is listed on the stock exchange but controlled by the state. So far the company has spent about €60m developing the project, on top of the €20m development fee it paid the state for the site. Officials told the committee that this money won’t simply be written off, whichever option is chosen.
The ministry’s case against subsidy rests on a point that would have been hard to imagine when the offshore programme was planned: Lithuania may soon have more power than it needs. Junevičius said the country expects around 7 GW of renewable capacity by the end of this year, and he expects generation to outstrip domestic demand by 2030. In that system, a €3bn offshore wind farm guaranteed a high price for 15 years looks less like energy security and more like a bill.
A project built to need nothing
The irony is that Curonian Nord was designed never to need state help. After laws adopted in 2022 set the framework for two 700 MW parks, with 1.4 GW in total expected to meet about half of Lithuania’s electricity demand, the government put the commercial site out to tender first. Nobody would get subsidies. Bidders competed on how much they would pay the state. In July 2023 Ignitis Renewables and its partner Ocean Winds won with a €20m development fee, securing a 41-year right to use the seabed and aiming to start operating by 2030.
Žygimantas Vaičiūnas, energy minister until this summer, has since called that sequencing the original mistake. In his view, the government of 2020–2024 tendered the commercial site first and left the state-supported one for later, and the country lost the lead it once had over Poland in Baltic offshore wind.
The state-supported route came next. On 6 October 2023 the European Commission approved a €193m Lithuanian scheme for a second 700 MW park: a two-way contract for difference running for 15 years, under which the developer is topped up when market prices fall below the strike price and pays back the difference when they rise above it. The aid had to be granted by 31 December 2025.
Lithuania couldn’t find anyone to take it. The first attempt, launched in January 2024, closed that April without a result. Dainius Kreivys, then Minister of Energy, blamed high interest rates, supply-chain disruption, rising equipment costs and cooling investor appetite, noting that “the investment attractiveness of offshore wind projects has shifted.” In July 2024 the Seimas loosened the rules: a single bidder would be enough, and electricity prices would be indexed to inflation. The tender reopened on 18 November 2024. By January 2025 it had been frozen again, this time by parliament. Members worried that a 15-year price guarantee would load costs onto consumers and squeeze out competing onshore generators.
The third attempt, in 2025, was the most carefully engineered. The price indexation period was cut from 23 years to eight, which the ministry said would save about €500m, and the two-bidder minimum was restored so that the tender couldn’t be won unopposed. The expected effect on bills was about half a euro cent per kWh for 15 years, followed by a similar reduction afterwards. The price corridor was set at €75.45–125.74/MWh. Airidas Daukšas, Vice-Minister of Energy, acknowledged in September 2025 that “not a single potential investor” had said it would take part without state support. On 7 October 2025 the window closed with exactly one bid, from Ignitis and Ocean Winds, and the regulator declared the tender void. With the Commission’s approval due to expire within weeks, the €193m went unused.
The commercial model cracks
Three days later, Ocean Winds left Curonian Nord as well, handing its 49% stake to Ignitis Renewables at a nominal price. In November 2025 Lithuania’s National Audit Office published a critical review. Estimated costs had risen 27% since 2023 to €2.8bn. Expected returns had fallen by 40%. About 60% of the planned development work had been postponed, and there were still no long-term offtake contracts less than 18 months before construction was due to start. Irena Segalovičienė, Auditor General of the National Audit Office, said delays and growing risks were “clouding the project’s future despite its strategic importance.”
Ignitis delivered the cost-benefit analysis the auditors had demanded on 29 June 2026. Two days later Vaičiūnas, by then on his way out of the ministry, said what the document apparently showed: “My assumption is that the first offshore wind project, Curonian Nord, is not currently feasible on commercial terms.” He described two ways to rescue it: a new state-aided tender, or asking the Commission to approve aid for Curonian Nord itself. He warned that if turbines weren’t ordered or real construction hadn’t started by the end of 2026, cancellation would be close to certain. That same week, the project received a positive environmental impact assessment decision.
His successor, Lukas Savickas, who took over in the July reshuffle, promised a quick decision and said the project would not be approved “at any cost”. He set three tests: it has to make economic sense, lower prices for consumers, and fit Lithuania’s strategic goals. Wednesday’s hearing was the first public sign of how the ministry is scoring it.
What the freeze would really mean
Every option has a cost. A freeze keeps the seabed data and the environmental consent, but it runs against the Vaičiūnas deadline and leaves Lithuania without offshore wind until well into the 2030s, while Poland and Germany build out their Baltic fleets. A Latvian partnership would spread the cost and could open the door to EU money. However, it would need a second government, new agreements and an EU grant process, and none of those move quickly. Charging consumers, meanwhile, has already been ruled out.
What has changed most is the reason for the project. Offshore wind was sold to Lithuanians as a guarantee of energy independence after Russian gas and Belarusian nuclear power became unacceptable. Three years, three tenders and one departed partner later, the ministry is making a different argument: Lithuania is already on track to have surplus power, and consumers shouldn’t pay for more of it just yet. That is a coherent position. It also means the programme meant to put Lithuania at the front of Baltic offshore wind may now depend on whether Latvia wants in.
