Current developments in the Polish RE sector

After many months, even years of waiting, the first vote on the government's draft amendments to the Wind Energy Investment Act took place in the Polish Sejm. As announced by the Prime Minister, the adoption of the amendments to the Wind Power Investment Act will enable Poland to submit its first application for payments from the EU budget under the "National Reconstruction Plan". The bill is therefore of key political importance. The bill is highly controversial and is triggering a lively public debate. It can be assumed that the Senate will thoroughly revise the law even if it is passed by the Sejm. 

The draft amendment to the law provides for an important change in the regulations governing the siting of wind power plants. On the basis of a local spatial development plan, a municipality may specify a minimum distance of 700 meters from the nearest residential and mixed-use development for the construction of a wind turbine. This is a deviation from the previous rigid regulation, according to which the installation of a wind power plant was only permitted at a distance of ten times the total height of the wind power plant from buildings. 

It should be noted that the originally proposed minimum distance was 500 meters. However, this option was changed in the parliamentary committee and set at 700 meters. The change is strongly criticized by experts.  According to estimates, this could reduce the potential of new projects by about half. According to a presented calculation of the wind industry, the change of the minimum distance from 500 meters to 700 meters means a reduction of the legally allowed area for installation of wind turbines by up to 44 percent.

For the sake of completeness, it should be added that according to the proposed amendments, the siting of wind turbines in national parks, nature reserves, landscape parks and Natura 2000 areas is prohibited: when siting wind turbines in neighboring areas, the distance of the turbine from the border of the national park must be at least ten times its height, while the minimum distance from a nature reserve should be only 500 meters. 

The draft liberalization of the Distance Act currently under consideration in the Sejm assumes that wind turbines can only be sited on the basis of a local development plan, i.e. it retains the principle introduced in 2016. This is welcomed by urban planners, but significantly limits the potential for wind energy development. A large part of Poland is not yet covered by local development plans; before 2016, most wind turbines were built on the basis of a preliminary building permit.    

The bill provides that the developer of an investment that includes the construction of a wind turbine shall provide at least 10% of the installed capacity of the wind turbine that is the subject of the investment to the residents of the municipality for a period of 15 years from the date of the first energy production. 

According to the amendment, within 30 days after the decision on the construction permit becomes final, the generator must inform the municipality, the mayor or the mayor of the city about the main parameters of the power plant, including the maximum permissible power. Once this data is available, the municipality will give its residents the opportunity to "subscribe to electricity", but not more than 2 kW per feeding point. Within 90 days of completing the registration, the developer will sign a contract with a virtual prosumer composed of the municipality's residents who have registered.  The cost of taking a share of the installed capacity of the wind turbine is the product of this share, expressed in kW, and the cost of building the wind turbine, calculated according to the legal formula. 

The aforementioned provisions regarding the provision of a municipal share of wind energy capacity shall not apply to projects for which a zoning decision has been issued prior to July 2, 2024.

After a long period of preparation, the Polish Parliament is to consider amendments to the law liberalizing direct pipeline construction. The author of the draft amendments is the Ministry of Climate and Environment. 

A direct line makes it possible to deliver energy from, for example, a wind turbine to a consumer (e.g., a factory, offices, warehouses) bypassing the public power grid. The solution would be of great importance for domestic companies. It would allow them to purchase cheap electricity directly from the generator without having to pay grid fees. Current regulations in this area make such projects impossible in practice. Hence the need for change.

The amendment to the Energy Act is intended to finally change the provisions that in practice prevent the realization of direct lines and thus represent incorrect implementation of EU directives. Enabling direct lines will have an impact on the development of electricity generation from renewable energy sources, relieve the electricity system (especially the overloaded distribution networks) and strengthen the competitiveness of Polish companies. 

In the case of the so-called "cable pooling", the legislative work is less advanced, but it is planned to create the legal possibility for two independent RES generation sources to share one electricity connection. This solution is intended for generation sources with different generation profiles and, in particular, will allow photovoltaic plants to be connected to the connections currently used by wind farms and vice versa. The solution advocated by the wind and photovoltaic industries would address the lack of available connection capacity, especially for photovoltaic plants. It is estimated that the introduction of cable pooling provisions will allow the connection of several GW of new projects without the need for major expansion of the power grid.

The above changes are necessary to enable the further development of RES in Poland. Poland ranks sixth from the bottom in European comparison when it comes to the share of renewable energy in electricity generation. According to the EU statistics agency Eurostat, only 17.1 percent of our electricity consumption will come from renewable sources in 2021.