The main support schemes applicable to renewable energy sources are regulated in Poland in the 2015 RES Law and supplemented by the secondary legislation issued thereupon.
Background
By 1 July 2016, the incentive scheme addressed to the RES installations was primarily regulated in the Act of 10 April 1997 – the Energy Law and the transitional provisions of the Act of 20 February 2015 on renewable energy sources (hereinafter referred to as, respectively, “1997 Energy Law” and “2015 RES Law”) and it was based on tradable certificates of origin whereby renewable energy producers received:
- price for electricity sold at competitive market (with the right of the renewable energy producer to sell the entire generation to the last resort supplier at a price equal to the average electricity price in the preceding year which is currently equal to PLN 169.99/MWh – approx. EUR 39,62/MWh), as well as
- price for tradable certificates of origin purchased in particular by suppliers selling electricity to final consumers.
The foregoing incentive scheme operates so that market price for certificates may not exceed in practice the so-called “substitute fee” (“buy-out” price) which is an alternative method of fulfillment of the obligation to obtain and redeem certificates of origin. Such substitute fee is currently equal to PLN 300.03/MWh (approx. EUR 69,989/MWh) which operates as a cap for the market price of certificates. However, the average-weighted market price for certificates in November 2016 was equal to PLN 42.71/MWh.
Under the 2015 RES Law, as adopted in February 2015 and amended in December 2015 and June 2016, the abovementioned certificate-based incentive scheme would be still applicable, with certain modifications, to the RES installations commissioned by 1 July 2016 while the RES installations commissioned after that date would be authorized to benefit from the new auction-based incentive scheme.Under the foregoing legislation, the auction-based incentive scheme would be also available to the RES installations commissioned before 1 July 2016 if the pertinent producer decided to start in the auction and give up the certificate-based incentive scheme upon winning the auction.
The regulations provided in the 2015 RES Law were significantly amended by the act of 22 June 2016 on the amendments to the 2015 RES Law (the “Amendment”) which modified the incentive schemes in order to promote the auctions as well as the RES installations with stable generation profile. Below please find basic information on the RES incentive schemes which apply from 1 July 2016.
