Poland – Neew Investment prospects for Wind Power Plants

Published on 5th December 2024

Poland intends to unblock wind energy development - draft new regulations introduce greater flexibility in spatial planning for wind farms. The reduction of restrictions on the distance of turbines from buildings is expected to result in an increase in the scale of RES projects, which is reflected in the government's ambitious new plans for renewable energy growth targets. The planned expansion of wind capacity by 2030 presents significant opportunities for investors.

Draft amendments to the Law on Investment in Wind Power Plants

On 25 September 2024, a draft law on amending the Act on investments in wind power plants, the so-called “Wind Act” and certain other acts was published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre.
The key change envisaged in the draft is related to the abolition of the strict '10H' rule, according to which the minimum distance between wind turbines and residential buildings had to be equal to ten times the height of the wind turbine, unless the local plan specified a different distance, expressed in metres, but not less than 700 metres. The new minimum distance between a wind turbine and residential buildings proposed in the “Wind Act” must not be less than 500 metres, which is a significant improvement for investors compared to the currently adopted rules.

Another amendment concerns the siting of wind power plants in the vicinity of areas of natural value, i.e. national parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.

The current distance of a wind power plant from a national park has been set at a level equal to or greater than ten times the total height of the wind power plant. In contrast, the draft amendment provides for the possibility to build wind turbines at a distance of 1,500 metres from national parks. In the case of Special Areas of Conservation where bats or birds are the subject of protection and Natura 2000 sites, the distance is to be a minimum of 500 metres.

Among the main proposals for amendments contained in the draft of “Wind Act”, there is also the possibility to locate a wind power plant on the basis of a special type of local spatial development plan, the integrated investment plan, which was introduced into the Act on spatial planning and development last year. The integrated investment plan is prepared with a specific investment in mind, taking into account both the main investment and the complementary investment, which makes it more flexible and tailored
to the specific needs of the development of an investment in the form of the construction of a wind farm. Undoubtedly, the introduction of a simplified planning procedure is aimed at speeding up the procedure of planning documents related to the construction of wind power plants.

In order to standardise the procedure related to the planning process, the legislatiors also proposed to move the provisions regulating the consultation requirements for agreeing a local spatial development plan from the Wind Power Investments Act to the Planning and Spatial Development Act.

Expected effects of the amendment

The entry into force of the draft amendments to the Wind Power Investment Act is expected to significantly unlock additional land for onshore wind power investments in Poland.

It should be recalled that since 2016 we have seen a sharp decline in the scale of investment in onshore wind farms in Poland. This was due to a significant reduction in the available investment area: in 2016, legislation limited the permissible distance of wind turbines from residential buildings to ten times the height of the wind turbine, and in 2023, this rule was made more flexible by allowing wind turbines to be built at a distance of 700 metres from residential buildings when this was explicitly allowed by the local zoning plan.

Below is a chart comparing the estimated available area for wind farms as a result of: the introduction of the 10H rule in 2016, the regulatory amendment made in 2023 and as a result of the new regulations proposed by the Ministry of Climate and Environment in 2024 with the new 500 metre rule.

Onshore wind energy development plans in Poland

The draft act on amending the act on investments in wind power plants seems to be a part of a broader trend of accelerating the development of onshore wind power development in Poland.

It is worth noting that in September, the Ministry of Climate and Environment presented the assumptions for the update of the government's energy strategy, which will be included in the National Energy and Climate Action Plan to 2030. The new proposals of the Ministry of Climate and Environment envisage increasing the share of green energy in gross final energy consumption to 32.6 per cent by 2030, up from 23 per cent assumed in the original version of the plan.

Particularly ambitious assumptions relate to the planned increase in onshore wind farm capacity in 2030. It is worth noting that in the original version of the plan, published in 2019, the Ministry of Climate and Environment assumed that in 2030. Poland will have achievable capacity in onshore wind farms at the level of 9.6 GW in 2030. However, these assumptions are already out of date - in 2024, the total wind power capacity in Poland exceeded 10 GW.

According to the planned update of the government's energy strategy, the increase in wind power capacity in Poland is expected to reach as much as 19 GW by 2030, which indicates a significant investment space in this area.

As can be observed, the development of the wind power sector in Poland has recently been characterised by high dynamics. In light of the government's plans, it is expected to play a crucial role in Poland's decarbonisation by 2030, relieving photovoltaics, which has become the main arena for the development of the Polish renewable energy sector in recent years. With the entry into force of the changes under discussion, Poland has a chance to become one of the most attractive wind power markets in Europe.