WindEurope organised a press conference in Warsaw. The purpose of the meeting, held on 22 March, was to specify the economic and legal effects for existing RES installations following the potential implementation of adverse provisions of the amendment to the RES Act.
Pierre Tardieu, WindEurope’s Chief Policy Officer, stressed that the proposed provisions would be contradictory with the applicable Polish and EU law, including the new Directive on the promotion of renewable energy sources (RED II), formally adopted in December 2018. The government’s plans would clearly contradict Article 6 of the Directive, which obliges Member States to avoid changes to the support schemes for renewable energy compared to the original design of that schemes. The lack of stability of regulations for installations taking advantage of green certificates in Poland was discussed by Marta Pruszyńska, manager responsible for wind farms in Poland owned by the Italian company ERG, a PWEA member. “The proposed change is so substantial, so far interfering with the “rules of the game” applicable to date, that the very announcement thereof caused the prices to fall from PLN 150 to PLN 80,” she noted. We would like to thank very much Marta Pruszyńska from ERG for her participation in the conference and active support for PWEA in the measures counteracting the introduction of the new substitution fee calculation method to the RES Act.
“The government’s proposals not only would constitute a very grave message for the owners of the existing assets, but would also send a very detrimental message to those who are intending to invest in Poland today. This would entail higher cost of capital for new green energy investments, including wind farm projects in the Baltic Sea, which are crucial for energy transformation in Poland,” Tardieu noted.
This would also mean that Poland is resigning from the opportunity to invest in a technology that reduces wholesale electricity prices. Calculations of energy trader Enteneo demonstrate that in January and February 2019 wind generation decreased spot prices more than in the previous years, on average by 22.3 PLN/MWh per each additional 1,000 MW of generation delivered to the Polish power grid.