The European Commission this week authorized the aid plan of 40.000 million Polish zlotys (9.400 million euros) with which Poland wants boost generation of electricity through renewable sources, as reported in a statement.
The Executive of the union has considered that this scheme will promote the development of different technologies with high added value and will help the country to achieve its environmental and climate objectives for 2020. In addition, it has underlined that the measure will increase the share of renewable energies produced in Poland and minimizes any distortion it may cause on competition.
'The Polish support program will increase the share of green energy in the Polish energy mix and facilitate the country's energy transition. It will also preserve the competitiveness of those companies that are heavily dependent on energy, ”said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
The beneficiaries of this aid plan will be selected through competitive auctions. The first two rounds took place in December 2016 and June of this year and more will be organized until June 30, 2021.
In this way, small installations with a capacity of up to 500 kilowatts (kW) will benefit from the supply tariff, while installations with a capacity above this threshold will receive a premium above the market price, although only if in In the next few years, the market price of electricity is below the price issued at auctions.
The European Commission has evaluated the Polish plan on the basis of the EU rules on state aid in this area, and has decided to support it by considering that it will be positive to protect the environment. "These require competitive auctions to ensure that the use of public funds is limited and there is no excessive compensation," Brussels recalls in the statement, highlighting that Poland, with these grants, "will promote the development of different renewable technologies, in accordance with the requirements of the European Guidelines ”. This measure, he insists, "will increase the share of renewable electricity produced in Poland, while any distortion of competition caused by state support is minimized."
This renewable support plan will be financed with a surcharge applied to electricity consumers. Poland has also notified the Commission of other plans to reduce the financial burden on companies in certain energy-intensive sectors, which will benefit from a reduced surcharge. Brussels has found that these reductions "are in line with the Guidelines, which allow Member States to reduce companies in certain sectors that consume a large amount of energy and are exposed to international operations".
The Polish plan will be accompanied by an evaluation plan to determine its impact. The results of this evaluation will be presented to the Commission before December 2020.
Poland is the country that pollutes the most
In fact, Poland has earned the reputation of the most polluting country in Europe on its own merits, and this is because until now, it has opted for coal generation and not favoring the development of renewable energies. We hope this starts to change from now on.
In a report published a few months ago, it clearly announced that Poland will not reach its renewable energy target for 2020. Hence the rush and the facilities of Europe.
According to the report, the country will not reach the goal even in the most favorable scenario, which predicts that it will cover 13,8% of its energy demand with renewable energy by 2020, and not the 15% as planned by the Polish government in the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (PANER). In the worst case, Poland is expected to barely meet 10% of demand with renewable energy.
The report's authors note that maintaining the country's current renewable energy policy would not be sufficient to meet the goal, and that the government should take urgent measures to provide more incentives for renewables.
Fortunately, it seems that the administrations have put thread to the needle to try to improve the figures of these reports.