Amendment of the Renewable Energy Law – a necessary step towards organising new auctions for renewable energies

​In a nutshell:

In 2017, the Polish government realised that lack of the European Commission‘s approval of the Renewable Energy Law in the notification procedure and granting funds for electricity generated in renewable energy sources at amounts determined at auctions may be questioned as being in conflict with state aid principles. Finally, the President signed the amendment to the Renewable Energy Law at the end of June and most of the amended provisions which are of key importance for the organisation of new auctions became effective.

On 29 June 2018, the President of Poland signed the Law amending the Renewable Energy Law and some other Laws. The new law was enacted at high speed in an accelerated legislative procedure. The Sejm first adopted the amendment to the RE Law on 7 June this year and the Senate approved it without any changes already on 29 June. Still on the same day, the amendment was signed by the President into law and immediately published in the Polish Journal of Laws. Except for some provisions, the amendment takes effect 14 days upon publication.

According to the amendment the installed effective capacity for micro plants will be increased up to 50 kW (previously 40 kW). The amendment specifies in more detail the elements of the annual summary report for the President of the Energy Regulatory Authority (URE) and eliminates superfluous elements of declarations to be submitted by renewable electricity producers.
The legislator decided to set the reference prices – that is the maximum prices which can be quoted in offers for sale of the produced energy at auctions in 2018 – directly in the law. Below, you find the reference prices for plants with a capacity of up to 1 MW and over 1 MW.

Certain changes in the principles regulating the pre-classification procedure are of importance to investors who prepare for the participation in auctions. According to the new provisions, producers who wish to participate in auctions held in 2018 must either again file an application with the President of URE for issuing the relevant certificate on admittance to an auction or submit a declaration on participation in the auction.

Attention should be paid to the amount of electricity which will be contracted at the next auctions. Some very good news is the amount of power to be contracted with photovoltaic installations or wind turbines with an effective capacity of over 1 MW. It enables the completion of wind projects that are ready for installation but for which no auction has been organised so far.  The dramatic stagnation in the development of wind projects can be seen from the graphics below.

The amount of solar and wind power to be purchased from operators of PV installations and wind turbines at auctions in 2018 is:

• for plants with a capacity of over 1 MW – 45 000 000 MWh;
• for plants with a capacity of up to 1 MW – 16 065 000 MWh.

Apart from the auction system, the law provides for several new solutions for producers of electricity from renewable energy sources; they are intended for micro and small RE plants that use stable and predictable energy sources (hydro, biogas, agricultural biogas). The law opens up the possibility of feeding combined energy from various sources into the grid via one single or several grid connection point(s) and changes the unfavourable taxation principles applicable to wind turbines (change of the term „construction“ in the construction law and of the definition of the term „wind turbine“ in the Law on Wind Power Investments).