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Poland’s restrictive new law hampers wind energy development

Restrictive new law will harm Poland’s wind industry, advocates say, Midwest Energy News, Kathiann M. Kowalski , 28 July 16, A new law that took effect in Poland earlier this month could kill growing competition from land-based wind farms by expanding setback requirementstenfold and increasing tax burdens, clean energy advocates say.

The law took effect July 15 and comes after Poland’s conservative Law and Justice Party won control of the government in last fall’s elections. That party’s leadership has embraced coal as the future of the country’s energy landscape.

“Investors are going to go bankrupt,” said Wojciech Cetnarski of the Polish Wind Energy Association.

Ohio passed its own law tripling property line setbacks for wind turbines in 2014. Since then, the state has seen little development of new wind farms, except forprojects grandfathered in under previous setback requirements.

Among other things, the Polish law raises the minimum setback for a new turbine to at least ten times its height from buildings and forests. In addition, the law allows extended shutdowns for turbine inspections and could lead to a fourfold increase intaxes for all land-based wind farm operations.

In Cetnarski’s view, curtailing wind energy will give an advantage to coal-fired power, which dominates Poland’s energy landscape.

“The market share of the state-owned companies will increase,” he said. “Electricity prices in Poland will go up.”

Other new provisions in Polish law could make it more difficult for renewable energy facilities to sell electricity to the grid, delaying recovery of investment costs and profits.

Poland’s actions came soon after the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) announced earlier this year that the levelized cost of electricity from wind energy is now essentially on par with that of coal. More recently, IRENA reported that global average costs for electricity from wind and solar energy could drop up to59 percent by 2025.

Before the law, Poland’s wind industry had been expanding, with installed capacity growing more than five times from 2010 to 2015. Projections showed that the country could add up to another 10 gigawatts of onshore wind energy by 2030.

The new setback law is especially frustrating to Poland’s wind industry because the prior government had finally agreed to a plan that would have shifted more subsidies for the country’s renewable investments into wind energy.

The new government suspended that law in December…….http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/07/26/restrictive-new-law-will-harm-polands-wind-industry-advocates-say/

July 29, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, renewable