News & Analysis

/16^th March 2016, RENEWABLE MARKET WATCH^TM/ Geographically, Poland is suitable for generating electricity from solar energy throughout the whole year. According to Polish Academy of Science, the average annual sunshine duration in Poland is 1,600 hours, and the average solar radiation resource on a horizontal surface is approx. 1,080 kWh/m2. According to the Polish Energy Policy 2050, solar PV capacity will rise to 15.83 GW by 2050. Mandatory targets of the Directive 2009/28/EC on the Promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources set by EU for Poland are 15 % by 2020. Despite the provisions on the key share of lignite and hard coal in the energy mix, Poland will continue to increase renewables’ share after 2020. Poland’s government has decided that the share of energy from renewable sources in the end consumption (of electricity, heat and fuels) will have to grow also after 2020, a direction previously opposed by the cabinet led by Donald Tusk (which, in turn, was against Poland’s current Energy Policy until 2030). The factor that tipped the scales in favour of this new approach was adopting the EU climate and energy package for 2021-2030 where the EU set a renewables target for the whole block at 27% by end-2030.

The New RES Act stipulates that Poland will maintain the green certificate system for the existing renewable energy installations, with some changes to the existing rules. For new RES installations, i.e. those that start generating electricity not earlier than 1 July 2016, the New RES Act will introduce new subsidy mechanism: a guaranteed price of electricity in the form of either feed-in tariffs (FiT) for small-scale installations or feed-in premiums (FiP) for larger RES installations, where both FiT and FiP would be awarded in auctions.

Ministry of Economy of Poland informed on 10th October 2015 about the establishment of the Renewable Energy Settlement Operator S.A./Operatora Rozliczeń Energii Odnawialnej A.S. (OREO).  This operator is a special-purpose state-owned company that will be obliged to execute settlement operations concerning renewable energy electricity generated by power plants operating according to an auction mechanism for renewable energy projects. Mr. Jarosław Bogacz was appointed for chairman of the board of OREO. He was previously engaged with EDF Poland.

Following the privatisation experience, developments in the electricity markets of other jurisdictions and EU accession Poland opted for full liberalization and the enhancement of stability, transparency and competition in the Poland electricity market. This has resulted in closer official monitoring of the new, emerging regulatory regime for the electricity market and Energy Regulatory Office (ERO) is determined to maintain the perception of good governance it has pursued up until now.

At the beginning of October 2011 first large scale, a photovoltaic project with 1 MW capacity started operation in Wierzchoslawice county, southern Poland. Five years later, in 2016, Poland is still trailing with less than 100 MW cumulative installed PV capacity. All market players expect more sizeable activity at Polish solar market to be registered in the second half of 2016 when the new auction system will start working.

More information about deal, activities and legal regulations on Polish solar market you may read here: Poland Photovoltaic Market Outlook 2016 – 2025