Keep-on-Track! Project National Report: Poland

Transcription

1 Keep-on-Track! Project National Report: Poland Contract No: IEE/11/842 Authors: Anna Pobłocka-Dirakis, eclareon Beata Wiszniewska, PIGEOR (The Polish Economic Chamber of Renewable and Distributed Energy)

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS THE POLISH RES-E SECTOR... 4 SUPPORT SCHEME... 4 BARRIERS TO THE ELECTRICITY SECTOR... 4 THE POLISH RES-H&C SECTOR... 8 SUPPORT SCHEME... 8 BARRIERS TO THE HEATING AND COOLING SECTOR... 8 THE POLISH RES-T SECTOR SUPPORT SCHEME BARRIERS TO THE TRANSPORT SECTOR LITERATURE AND OTHER SOURCES Disclaimer: The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EACI nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. 2

3 Interviewed Experts We would like to thank all interviewed experts for their very valuable input and their support for this study. We highly appreciate their expert knowledge and their availability in the framework of the Keep on Track Project on behalf of the European Commission. For this country study, the following experts were interviewed in 2014 and 2015: Krzysztof Biernat, Instytut Paliw i Energii Odnawialnej IPIEO (Institute for Fuels and Renewable Energy) Maja Dyczkowska, AOS Stanisław Pietruszko, Polskie Towarzystwo Fotowoltaiki PV Polska (Polish PV Association) Grzegorz Szulc, Innowacyjne Techniki Energii Odnawialnej ITEO (Innovative Technologies for Renewable Energy) 3

4 The Polish RES-E Sector Support scheme In the Republic of Poland, electricity from renewable sources is currently promoted by green certificates. The rule governing the certificate receipt is identical to all RES technologies one certificate is obtained for 1 MWh of energy produced from a licensed/registered source and confirmed with the proper readings of the measuring devices. The upper limit of the certificate price is determined by the value of the unit substitute fee. Electricity producers may also sell their electricity on the market or offer it to an electricity supplier at last year's market price. Operators of micro-installations with a capacity up to 40 kw, who decide to sell their generated electricity to an electricity supplier, receive 80% of last year's market price. Furthermore, electricity from renewable sources is supported through tax relief as well as loan and subsidy schemes from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (Narodowy Fundusz Ochrony Środowiska i Gospodarki Wodnej NFOSiGW) (RES LEGAL Europe Database). In January 2015 Polish Sejm (first chamber of the Parliament) passed the Renewable Energy Sources Act. It has now been passed on to the second chamber of the Parliament the Senate. It is expected that the Act will enter into force in March However, the planned new support scheme will not be active until Barriers to the electricity sector Political and economic framework There is a lack of long term policy and legal solutions for the development of renewable energies in Poland. Although the Government did elaborate a renewable energy strategy, experts point out that is not being implemented yet. As a matter of fact, the government currently seems to prioritise the nuclear strategy together with the restructuring strategy of the coal sector (PIGEOR). As highlighted in the previous report, up to this day (January 2014) Poland did not transpose the Directive on renewable energy sources to the national law. In March 2013, the European Commission referred Poland to the European Court of Justice for this delay. Member States of the European Union were obliged to implement the RES-Directive 2009/28/EC into their national law no later than by the 5 December Poland has not presented new consistent legal solutions that ensure a sustainable development of RES in Poland. The amendments of the Energy Law from July 2013 that Poland introduced in order to avoid the penalty are in the opinion of the European Court not sufficient to meet the EC criteria. The Commission proposes to impose a daily penalty payment of EUR 61,380. The Court is currently deliberating on this issue. Since over 3 years, the Polish government is working on the implementation of the new Law on renewable energy sources (RES-Law), which was already highlighted in the previous report as a severe barrier that could jeopardize the achievement of the 2020 target. In January 2015 the first chamber of the Parliament passed the Renewable Energy Sources Act and passed it on to the second chamber of the Parliament. It is expected that the Act will enter into force in March The law 4

5 will introduce a new support scheme for RES-E in a form of auction scheme, which however, will not be active until The existing quota scheme should continue and apply for already existing plants for 15 years after their commissioning, but their operators can choose if they prefer to be supported through the auction scheme instead. In the auction system, there will be 2 tendering categories, depending on the plant capacity (< 1 MW and >1 MW). The winner of the tender will be the operator who is committed to deliver a certain amount of electricity for the lowest price, which will represent the guaranteed feed-in tariff for 15 years. The auction system does not apply to the following installations using renewable energy sources: 1) Installations for multi-fuel combustion, with the exception of dedicated multi-fuel plants 2) Hydro-power plants with total installed capacity of more than 5MW 3) Installations using biomass, biofuels, biogas or agricultural biogas with a total installed capacity of more than 50 MW, with the exception of high efficient co-generation plants with a heat capacity of not more than 150 MWt. Apart from the auction scheme a feed-in tariff for micro-installations with capacity up to 10 kw has been introduced. The tariff will amount to PLN ( ) per kwh and will be paid for the period of 15 years after connecting the installation to the grid. The insecurity regarding new RES-Law the time of its implementation and its effect on different technologies prevent new investments (AOS). Without security regarding support of investments, banks make the financing of the project more difficult because of growing risk of investments (PIGEOR) According to Mr Pietruszko from the Polish PV-Association, the draft law on renewable energy sources does not allow for the development of prosumer and distributed renewable energy generation. Auction mechanism will support the development of RES based solely on the cheapest technologies (Pietruszko, PV Polska). For over a year now there is oversupply of green certificates. The main reason for this trend is including RES-electricity production in co-firing plants, using biomass together with fossil sources (coal and lignite) into the support scheme. This production amounts to the volume of about 50% of all electricity generated from renewable sources. In practice, this means that over 50% of the revenues from the sale of green certificates go to conventional energy sector. The price of green certificates fell also through the support of old and fully amortised hydro power plants and the possibility of paying the substitute fee instead of purchasing the certificates form producers of electricity from RES (PIGEOR). For this barrier, no substantial evolution was observed in Grid regulation & infrastructure Access to the grid for new plants, especially those using renewable energy sources is very limited. The most important barrier concerning grid issues is lack of free grid capacity. The poor infrastructure of transmission and distribution grid is not adjusted to distributed electricity generation as the one coming from the usage of renewable energy sources. This is due to the centralised electricity generation system prevailing in Poland. This situation is intensified through insufficient investments in network extension in the desired scale, technical restrictions introduced 5

6 by companies involved in electricity distribution and transmission for those who apply for grid connection permits and finally speculators who are closing access to network (PIGEOR). Apart from that there is no guarantee and no priority of grid connection for plants using renewable energy sources. The priority for renewable energy sources applies only for the transmission of the electricity but this can only be applied after connection. This situation will become even harder for wind, biomass, biogas, hydro and geothermal power plants, because of the planned introduction of less complicated administrative and legal proceeding for PV plants in the draft of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (PIGEOR). The connection fee claimed by the grid operator differs significantly for the same RES-E plant type and the same capacity. Based on data provided by the Transmission System Operator PSE, the difference may be as much as two orders of magnitude converted per one megawatt for the same RES source (e.g. wind energy generation). At one location, issued connection conditions require a connection fee of PLN 13,000 per MW ( 3,144 per MW), while at another location about PLN 4 million per MW ( 970,000 per MW) (PIGEOR). The situation regarding the aforementioned barriers has not evolved since January Administrative processes Another type of barriers are these connected to the administrative processes. The time required to develop fully permitted project (with construction permit) is at least 3 years. The most complicated issues are lack of spatial plans, lengthy procedures and lack of information on available grid capacities (PIGEOR). First barrier is the lack of local spatial development plans. Most investments in renewable energy sources may be located in an area on the basis of including generation facilities in the local spatial development plan. This applies particularly to investments in wind farms. Currently, a majority of municipalities in Poland do not have a local spatial development plans and if they have, the plans seldom provide for location for the RES plants in the area. In this situation, the building permit is issued on the basis of a planning permission (rarely possible for wind farms) or a new local spatial development plan needs to be approved. The procedure of a new plan approval is costly and timeconsuming and extends the process of preparing the investment project by minimum one year. The procedure for obtaining the local development plan is in many cases connected with an assessment on the environmental impact (PIGEOR). Lengthy administrative procedures constitute another barrier. There are only few regulations on how long the administrative procedures may take, and, in cases when they are specified, the timeframe is considered as too long. Mr Szulc, an expert on biogas installations, stated that the administrative procedures in Poland takes approximately 1.5 year, whereas in the neighbouring country Germany the same procedure is finalised in 1 or 2 months (Szulc, ITEO). Also an expert from a company consulting RES investments in Poland, Mrs Dyczkowska, pointed this barrier as one of the most important ones. According to her, the most hindering aspects are obtaining the construction permit and the general negative attitude from the administration side. Because of these facets the development of a wind farm may take up to 7 to 10 years (Dyczkowska, AOS) 6

7 No relevant evolution of the above-mentioned barriers was observed in Other One very severe barrier is the public perception of RES as an expensive energy source. Politicians, as for example the former Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, express the argument that energy generated from such sources is the most expensive one and contributes to growing energy prices for end users, deteriorates the landscape and adversely affects the functioning of the electricity system. Instead, there is a constant preference and promotion of conventional and nuclear energy by the Polish Government (PIGEOR). This perception is also very visible among the local population as for development of a wind farm or a biogas power plant. NIMBY attitude is very common and becomes even stronger when it comes to foreign investors (not Polish companies) (Dyczkowska, AOS). Another barrier, which may worsen the attitude of people towards renewable energy sources and especially towards PV installations, is a lack of regulations introducing an acceptance report of PV installations. According to Mr Pietruszko from the Polish PV-Association, lack of such requirement allows the entrance of low quality installations into the Polish market (Pietruszko, PV Polska). 7

8 The Polish RES-H&C Sector Support scheme In Poland, heat generated from renewable energy sources is supported through one loan and three different subsidy schemes. The loan and two subsidies are governed by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management. The third subsidy was launched by a state-owned bank. The latter supports refurbishment works which, among others, may include the installation of RES technologies for heat generation. The low interest loan supports the purchase and installation of biogas, biomass and geothermal energy thermal installations. The other subsidy is combined with low interest loans to support the purchase and installation of small and micro-res installations for the needs of residential single-family or multi-family houses. The last subsidy from the National Fund supports the purchase and installation of solar collectors (RES LEGAL Europe Database). Renewable energy sources in heating are only indirectly supported though a certificate system. Apart from the green certificates granted for electricity generation from renewable energy sources, there are also certificates for supporting co-generation: yellow certificates granted for CHP using agricultural biogas and CHP using other RES with capacity up to 1 MW el or purple certificates granted for CHP using gas derived from any biomass and red certificates granted for CHP using solid biomass or bioliquids with an installed capacity of at least 1 MW. Certificates are issued for electricity generated in high-performance cogeneration plant, but the amount of the certificates granted strongly depends on the amount of generated heat (PIGEOR). Barriers to the heating and cooling sector Political and economic framework The most severe barrier to development of renewable energy sources in the heating sector is the insufficient support system. In comparison with renewable energy sources in electricity sector, RES used for heating purposes are poorly supported. There is no quota system with certificates for generation of heating from RES, no guaranteed prices and no tax exceptions or reliefs (PIGEOR). There is no tax relief for the purchase of renewable energy equipment for heating purposes. This barrier affects primarily smaller units. The tax law does not include any suitable mechanism supporting installation of units generating heat using renewable energy sources, as for example heat pumps, solar collectors and biomass boilers in residential buildings (PIGEOR). The situation regarding the aforementioned barriers has not substantially evolved since January Other Another barrier is the limited access to biomass for heating purposes, which was already mentioned in previous report as a barrier. Introduction of green certificates to support producers of electricity 8

9 from renewable energy sources has resulted in transfer of a significant part of biomass delivery from the heat production industry to the electricity sector. Consequently, there has been no significant increase in the share of primary energy in domestic biomass in recent years. Effectively, there are anomalies in the use of biomass for energy purposes. Energy companies, guided by a potential profit derived from green certificates, obtain biomass for blocks generating electricity. A major part of electricity generated in Poland is produced from biomass, particularly in installations for co-firing of biomass with coal and from large installations for biomass. Thus, availability of solid biomass for energy purposes at a reasonable price for the heating sector is very much limited (PIGEOR). 9

10 The Polish RES-T Sector Support scheme In Poland, renewable energy in transport is promoted through a biofuels quota obligation. The producers, importers and suppliers of fuels are obliged to meet an annual quota of biofuels in the total amount of liquid fuels produced/supplied/imported. The obligation levels - the National Indicative Target - are determined every three years for a period of 6 years by the Council of Ministers (RES LEGAL Europe Database). Barriers to the transport sector Political and economic framework The main barrier concerning biofuels in Poland is the unawareness of and lack of interest for this kind of technology. This barrier mostly concerns advanced biofuels (Biernat, IPIEO). In Poland a lot of farmers invested in rape-seed crops, which are used for the production of first generation biofuels. Since the European Union currently wants to promote the second generation of biofuels, the relatively strong rape-seed farmers lobby is protesting against the advanced biofuels (Biernat, IPIEO). Other barriers are related to the strong quality requirements towards biofuels, which are not scientifically based. This obstacle concerns both first and second generation of biofuels. For the first generation biofuels, including biodiesel comprising FAME, there is a problem in complying with the parameter of resistance to oxidation measured by so-called Rancimat method. Because of the relatively rapid oxidation of FAME in the conditions of distribution and storage and with no clearly examined impact of the catalytic construction materials (particularly those containing copper), biodiesel producers are forced to substantially increase the oxidation resistance through the introduction of greater amounts of antioxidants. These however, have influence on the aging process of the fuel (Biernat, IPIEO). Concerning the second generation (advanced) biofuels and possibilities to incorporate so-called biohydrocarbons (synthetic hydrocarbons) into fuels new quality requirements and test methods for the so-called biocomponents has been prepared. These requirements are specified in a draft Regulation amending Regulation of the Minister of Economy on quality requirements, quality testing methods and methods of sampling for biocomponents. This regulation is currently under proceeding at the European Commission. Planned requirements for advanced biofuels do not have any confirmation resulting from research or practice and will hinder the introduction of "drop in biofuels" in Poland. The regulation intents to introduce limits for amount of bio-hydrocarbons to 7% (v/v) in diesel and to 10% (v/v) in petrol. Apart from this, it also introduces some additional requirements for hydrocarbons and a duty of supplementary indications for bio-hydrocarbons added to petrol. The requirements for bio-hydrocarbons added to diesel fuels are even more extensive (Biernat, IPIEO). 10

11 For both types of fuels these additional requirements and their values are not supported by research and the justification cited in regulation is extremely vague (Biernat, IPIEO). 11

12 Literature and other sources Biernat, IPIEO: Krzysztof Biernat, Institute for Fuels and Renewable Energy (Instytut Paliw i Energii Odnawialnej IPIEO). Interviewed on Dyczkowska, AOS: Maja Dyczkowska, AOS. Interviewed on Pietruszko, PV Polska: Stanisław Pietruszko, Polish PV Association (Polskie Towarzystwo Fotowoltaiki PV Polska). Interviewed on re-frame.eu Database: Online database on barriers to renewable energy and the corresponding policy recommendations. National profile for Poland. Available at: (last visit on ). RES LEGAL Europe Database: Website on Legal Sources on Renewable Energy. European Commission. Available at: (last visit on ). PIGEOR: The Polish Economic Chamber of Renewable and Distributed Energy (Polska Izba Gospodarcza Energii Odnawialnej I Rozproszonej PIGEOR). Questionnaire provided as member of the Keep-on-Track consortium PIGEOR on Szulc, ITEO: Grzegorz Szulc, Innovative Technologies for Renewable Energy (Innowacyjne Techniki Energii Odnawialnej ITEO). Interviewed on