According to a statement published by the Ministry of Energy, the European Commission on 31 October 2019 informed the Polish government that in its opinion the changes regarding the auction system introduced by the Act of 19 July 2019 on the amendment of the Act on renewable energy sources and certain other acts have purely administrative nature and do not imply the need to notify the Commission of new assistance.
The Commission’s acceptance concerned the following changes:
1. extending the period of payment of 15-year support for winning installations as part of the RES auction. The change is dictated by the need to grant investors time to launch the installation (implementation time). For the beneficiaries of the last auctions, scheduled for 2021, the above rule would mean shortening the support period by the duration of the investment. The support payment period was extended from December 31, 2035 to June 30, 2039.
2. extension of the electricity sales date for the first time after winning the RES auction to maintain the differential contract awarded under the auction. For solar installations it has been extended from 18 to 24 months, for onshore wind farms from 30 to 33 months, for other generation technologies from 36 to 42 months. The 72-month deadline set for offshore wind farms was left unchanged.
At the same time, the permissible age of devices used in installations for generating energy from renewable energy was extended. For solar installations from 18 to 24 months, for onshore wind farms from 30 to 33 months, for other technologies from 36 to 42 months. In the case of offshore wind farms, the installation validity period of 72 months was left unchanged.
3. in order to adapt the period during which operational support is granted (green certificates were granted from 1 October 2005) to the period in which investors received investment aid, only investment aid that was granted from 1 October 2005 was taken into account.
4. Investors will be able to update their auction offers for certain technical components under the following conditions:
- the offer can be updated once;
- the update should be submitted to the President of the Energy Regulatory Office no later than 30 days before the first sale of electricity under the support program and submission of the first application for settlement of support to the settlement authority (Zarządca Rozliczeń SA).
The update can only apply to the following:
- the expected start date of the 15-year period during which the support will be paid (provided that such an update does not conflict with Article 79 (3) (8) (a) of the Energy Law);
- the expected amount of electricity generated in the subsequent years of the 15-year period (however, the total amount of electricity contained in the initial offer cannot be changed); installed capacity of the installation (provided that such a change would not result in the installation being assigned to a different auction basket than the one in which the installation initially competed)
Source: Ministry of Energy communication