1. The Council of Ministers regulation on the maximum volume and value of electric energy from renewable energy sources that may be sold in auctions in 2020 ("Budget regulation") was published in the Journal of Laws on 22 January 2020 and became effective on 23 January 2020. We commented on the draft regulation in a previous newsletter.
  2. The Budget regulation includes budgets for the initial round of RES auctions out of two expected in 2020. An additional regulation on reference prices (cap prices) needs to be adopted to set the remaining auction parameters, allowing the Energy Regulatory Authority to proceed with organizing the auctions. No draft regulation has been announced yet.
  3. The government announced its intention to organize two rounds of auctions in 2020. The Budget regulation includes the budgets for the first of these rounds – the budgets for the second rounds are not yet known.
  4. Following the reasoning of this regulation, the budget will allow the deployment of small PV projects with total capacity approx. 800 MW. As regards the auction for large PV and wind projects (above 1 MW), the government estimates that approx. 800 MW of wind projects and 700 MW of PV projects will be able to secure support. Accordingly, the government expects that most of the wind projects which lost auctions in 2018 and 2019 will eventually secure support in 2020 and there will still be room for utility-scale PV installations in this basket. Other installations (biomass, biogas and hydro) can compete for a budget supporting up to 160 MW of new projects; however, recent auctions demonstrated limited interest of investors to put forward such projects in RES auctions.
  5. The government's expectations in terms of RES deployment resulting from the auctions in 2020 are presented in the table below:
  6. Energy source Small Large
    Wind  -  800 MW
    Solar energy  800 MW  700 MW
    Hydropower  10 MW  20 MW
    Agricultural biogas  20 MW  -
    Biogas: landfill and sewage treatment   10 MW  -
    Biomass: dedicated biomass combustion   -  100 MW
  7. Below we present the final budgets and volumes for particular installations in 2020. As per the Act on Renewable Energy Sources ("RES Act") there are five "baskets" for installations, sorted by, among others, technology criteria. Additionally, separate auctions are organized for installations, which started generating electricity before 30 June 2016 and wish to migrate to the auction system ("Existing Installations") and installations which will start generating electricity after the auction ("New Installations"). Furthermore, projects and auction budgets are also split between installations with a total installed capacity of up to 1 MW ("Small Installations") and installations with a total installed capacity of over 1 MW ("Large Installations").

     

    New Installations

    Basket 2019 2020
    Small Installations Large Installations Small Installations Large Installations
    Biogas other than agricultural, hybrid systems, installations of thermal combustion 0 14 910 000 MWh
    5 577 600 000 PLN
    375 000 MWh
    166 875 000 PLN
    10 950 000 MWh
    5 182 500 000 PLN
    Hydropower, bioliquids, geothermal energy, offshore wind energy 140 400 MWh
    71 280 000 PLN
    594 000 MWh
    285 120 000 PLN
    540 000 MWh
    270 000 000 PLN
    1 080 000 MWh
    518 400 000 PLN
    Agricultural biogas 1 341 821 MWh
    939 274 880 PLN
    1 170 000 MWh
    678 600 000 PLN
    0 1 800  MWh
    1 152 000 000 PLN
    Onshore wind energy
    Solar radiation energy
    11 445 000 MWh
    4 213 650 000 PLN
    113 970 000 MWh
    32 000 000 PLN
    11 760 000 MWh 4 527 600 000 PLN 46 290 000  MWh 14 015 850 000 PLN
    Hybrid RES installation 0 0 0 0

     

    Existing Installations

    Basket 2019 2020
    Small Installations Large Installations Small Installations Large Installations
    Biogas other than agricultural, hybrid systems, installations of thermal combustion 1 120 000 MWh
    694 400 000 PLN
    34 000 000 MWh
    20 740 000 000  PLN
    0 0
    Hydropower, bioliquids, geothermal energy, offshore wind energy 1 475 211 MWh
    71 280 000 PLN
    594 000 MWh
    811 366 050 PLN
    0 0
    Agricultural biogas 1 149 296 MWh
    838 986 080 PLN
    3 433 219 MWh
    2 197 260 000 PLN
    0 2 500 000 MWh 1 600 000 000 PLN
    Onshore wind energy
    Solar radiation energy
    0 0 0 0
    Hybrid RES installation 0 0 0 0

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