The year 2015 was an enormously important period for the wind power sector. The Act on Renewable Energy Sources, adopted last year, introduces a complete change of the support scheme for “green electricity” from renewable energy sources. Those market players who wanted to join the system based on certificates of origin rushed to complete their projects by the end of last year. But now, the “to be or not to be” of wind power investors will, to a large extent, depend on winning an auction for green energy. However, in the nearest future we will have to face a slowdown in the industry as a consequence of, among others, the lack of a transition period between the two schemes and the anticipation of the first auction.
Today we have the pleasure to publish the report “The State of Wind Energy in Poland in 2015”, prepared by the Polish Wind Energy Association, where we present the most important facts and data on the wind power sector from the last year. Poland is in a particularly important moment for the development of the energy sector.
We are reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and more and more investors acknowledge Poland’s potential in renewable energy sources. Over the last four years the installed capacity in wind power has risen by almost 3,400 MW, reaching 5,000 MW at the end of 2015. This currently amounts to 13% of the entire power system in Poland, and the share of energy from wind in the total energy production has reached 6.21%.
We are replacing a mechanism based on green certificates with an auction scheme, which can be a certain challenge. However, the mechanism introduced by the RES Act is capable of encouraging new investors to build new, green capacity in the energy sector, by guaranteeing them stable and predictable revenues. It all depends, however, on specific provisions such as the size of the budget and the volume of energy allocated to future auctions. For a detailed description of the opportunities and threats related to the introduction of the auction system, see chapter “Legal framework for investment in wind power in Poland”.
The provisions introduced by the RES Act do not solve the issue of enormous oversupply of green certificates, which is a problem not only for those investing in wind power, but also in other RES technologies. The provisions of the RES Act turned out to be insufficient to bring a solution to the problem whose sources date back to 2011. Therefore the RES Act needs an amendment with comprehensive solutions. This issue is described in the chapter “Oversupply of certificates of origin”.
Apart from the shift from one system to the other, 2015 also brought changes to other important regulations affecting the industry, described in chapter “Environmental protection and investment: selected issues”. In March 2015, the Polish Parliament adopted the landscape act1, showing that it is possible to combine apparently contradictory interests of different sectors, and in October the President signed the amendment to the Environmental Protection Act, focusing on environmental impact of investment projects. Over the last months several draft acts on location of wind farms have also appeared, showing there is a need for discussion on this topic.
Some opponents of wind power claim that Poles are against investing in wind turbines. As an association, whose goals include debunking the myths on wind farms, we hired an independent company to carry out an opinion poll on the perception of wind power by the general public. The results of the poll have shown that on the one hand 72% of Poles, if given a choice of source of electricity for the homes, would choose a wind power plant (rather than coal-fired or nuclear), but have also revealed that some people still believe wind turbines can be harmful to health of both humans and animals. The results of the study, carried out by CBM Indicator, are discussed in the chapter “Public acceptance of wind energy power in Poland”.
The more we utilize the potential of wind power, the more benefits it will bring, not only to investors but – more importantly – to the entire Polish economy. In 2015 PWEA was a partner of a study investigating the impact of wind power on the labour market in Poland. The report by the Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies (WISE) shows than in a stable regulatory environment and with favourable conditions for dynamic development, wind power will be able to create jobs for more people than hard coal mining, which has to face inevitable restructuring. The results of the study and future development scenarios, discussed in chapter entitled “The impact of wind power on the Polish labour market”, demonstrate quite well how the benefits generated by the sector’s presence in Poland are affected by the investment climate created by the decision-makers. Social and economic profits from wind farms can now be even larger, and it is up the government whether Poles will benefit from them.
The UN Climate Change Conference, held in December last year, showed that the world is turning towards putting the national economies on low emissions track, and the European Union, which we are part of, wants an ever further-reaching reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, Poland is going to face a shortage of generation capacity. According to estimates of the Polish transmission grid operator PSE, a total capacity of 7 GW in outdated conventional units will have to be decommissioned by 2020, and as much as 12 GW by 2030, while there is only 6 GW of new capacity under construction. Moreover, maintaining the current generation structure will require a gradual entry into the purchase of CO2.emissions allowances. This will first lead to a modest, and after 2030, when free allowances will run out, to a dramatic increase of energy prices. In the meantime, the cost of electricity produced from wind will continue to decrease. Wind power, which already today is the largest sector of renewables in Poland, can be the answer to many energy-related challenges that Poland has to face. The recent changes in this sector, its current situation and the development of the months to come will show to what extent the potential and capabilities of the wind power sector will continue to be exploited.
Presenting you the “The State of Wind Energy in Poland in 2015” report, We believe it will be a useful compendium of knowledge on the current situation in the wind power industry.
We hope you find the report interesting. You can find it HERE.