Читать книгу Los Desafíos Jurídicos de la Transición Energética - Isabel González Ríos - Страница 23

The potential directions of transformation and change in the Polish energy sector over the next 30 years may vary. Undoubtedly, it is necessary to further improve the legal framework for the development of renewable energy sources and expand support for electricity production from RES. A kind of return to wind energy, both offshore and onshore, may be crucial for the economy.

As regards offshore wind energy, at the turn of 2020 and 2021 the legislative process was completed for passing a special law promoting electricity generation in offshore wind farms4. Thus, several months of difficult legislative and consultation work were completed. As a result, an act was passed defining the terms and conditions for providing support for electricity generated at offshore wind farms, the terms and conditions for the preparation and execution of investment projects and the requirements for the construction, operation and decommissioning of offshore wind farms.

Onshore wind energy, unfortunately, is not so fortunate in Poland. Since 2016 Poland has had a law restricting the possibility to carry out this type of investment5. A minimum distance has been introduced, of an onshore wind power plant from residential buildings, buildings with a mixed function (which includes a residential function) and from various statutory forms of nature conservation. This distance is now to be equal to or greater than ten times the height of the wind turbine measured from ground level to the highest point of the structure, including technical elements, in particular the rotor with blades. Due to the relatively high dispersion of residential development in Poland, a significant part of the most beneficial investment areas has been excluded. Despite the announced amendment to this law, work in this area has not yet been carried out.

Undoubtedly, the fastest growing area of renewable energy sources is currently the photovoltaic energy sector, mainly due to prosumers and appropriate subsidies for investments. However, as it was mentioned before, the project of legal changes (implementing the RED II directive) assumes also changes in the prosumer area, which may significantly slow down the development of this type of investments.

As it seems at present, a completely different kind of renewable energy source can play a very important role in the energy transformation of Poland, but also of the European Union. With natural gas currently being used as an interim fuel, over time its place may be taken by other decarbonized gases, including primarily biogas and its derivative biomethane.