Adoption of the amendment changing the minimum distance to wind turbines from 500 to 700 metres entails further blocking of onshore wind. Only the broadly consulted 500 m, accepted by the government and local governments, secured new wind megawatts within 2 years, with as much as 22 GW in subsequent years. An analysis by the Polish Wind Energy Association demonstrates that increasing the minimum distance to 700 m reduces capacity that could be installed by approximately 60 to 70%.
Amendments to the Distance Act have been broadly consulted and accepted both by the public and the government and were approved by the Joint Committee of the Government and Local Governments. The accepted liberalisation of the 10 h rule to 500 metres allowed for an increase in the area of sites available for wind energy investments more than 25-fold (from current 0.28% to 7.08% of the country’s area).
“Without 500 metres the wind power act is a failure — no new wind farm will be built in 10 years. The change in minimum distance to wind turbines to 700 m brings tragic consequences for wind energy. It precludes the use of the potential to be found in the Polish wind. Instead of more that a dozen, no more that a few GW of wind capacity will be built. De facto this is a further block to onshore wind. This is incomprehensible in the face of energy crisis and exorbitant electricity prices,” said Janusz Gajowiecki, President of the Polish Wind Energy Association.
“Electricity from wind is regarded as a development opportunity for local communities. It brings us budget revenues enabling investments serving local communities. Investment decisions should be made at the local level, not centrally. It is local government who is to decide on the future of local communities and should have decisive voice together with its inhabitants. Municipalities waited for the 500 metres. Today, with just one amendment, our opportunities have been drastically ruined,” said Leszek Kuliński, Head of Kobylnica Municipality.
Polish Wind Energy Association analysed more than 30 projects of new wind farms which originally assumed minimum distance to existing and planned development equal to 500 m. The review demonstrates that increasing the minimum distance to 700 m reduces capacity that could be installed by approximately 60 to 70%.
“Departure from the 500 m rule entails a substantial decrease in the number of investment opportunities related to new wind sources — each metre of increased distance means disproportionately more limitations for potential sites, resulting in the lack of opportunity to build a strong Polish industry, new, innovative jobs and continued dependence of the Polish energy sector on fuel imports,” Janusz Gajowiecki, President of the Polish Wind Energy Association added.
Unblocking onshore wind is a strategic decision in the face of extraordinarily high electricity prices — onshore wind is the least expensive source of electricity that may bring the fastest reduction in electricity bills for Polish families. Today, no other technology enjoys such a high support in Poland as RES. At the peak of a crisis related to coal shortage and skyrocketing electricity prices almost 90 percent of Polish citizens want urgent adoption of an act liberalising wind farm development.
PWEA ANALYSIS:
Below we present graphic results for three selected new wind farm projects. They directly demonstrate that the change to the proposed minimum distance to 700 m will preclude the use of the potential to be found in the Polish wind. For the wind farms in question the installed capacity will decrease by approximately 60 to 70 percent.
Fig. 1. PWEA analysis demonstrates that the change to the minimum distance from existing and planned development from 500 to 700 metres allows for installation of only 4 out of 13 wind turbines. Therefore, 9 wind turbines cannot be built.
Fig. 2. A graphic presentation of an analysis demonstrating that the change to the minimum distance from existing and planned development from 500 to 700 metres allows for installation of only 10 out of 35 wind turbines. Therefore, 25 wind turbines cannot be built.
Fig. 3. A graphic presentation of an analysis demonstrating that the change to the minimum distance from existing and planned development from 500 to 700 metres allows for installation of only 5 out of 11 wind turbines. Therefore, 6 wind turbines cannot be built.
