According to the estimates of the Institute for Renewable Energy, based on the four auctions in the wind and photovoltaic basket conducted so far for projects with a unit capacity of up to 1 MW, investors on the Polish PV market secured the right to sell energy for about 1.7 thousand. projects with a total capacity of around 1.66 GW.
Such amount of license applications must be processed by the Energy Regulatory Office with limited human resources. The photovoltaic industry has already complained about the problem of obtaining a concession decision, which depends on the possibility of selling energy in the auction system, and investors on the PV market have only two years to do so (recently statutorily extended by a maximum of one year due to epidemics). If the investor exceeds the deadline, then he must take into account the loss of a large deposit and the opportunity to enter the auctions in the next three years.
This year, the Energy Regulatory Office may still come, because more large auctions are being prepared, as a result of which several hundred PV projects will enter the game. In the auctions scheduled for this year, settlement guarantees in the auction system according to government estimates are to be counted by investors who will offer energy from solar farms with a total capacity of about 800 MW in the basket for projects with a capacity of up to 1 MW. In the wind-photovoltaic basket, for projects with a capacity above 1 MW, wind farms with a capacity of about 800 MW and photovoltaic farms with a capacity of 700 MW can obtain support – at least according to government assumptions.
According to the current definition contained in the Act on renewable energy sources, a small installation should be understood as a renewable energy source installation with a total installed electrical capacity greater than 50 kW and less than 500 kW, connected to the power grid with a rated voltage lower than 110 kV or with a capacity of thermal capacity in combination greater than 150 kW and not more than 900 kW, in which the total installed electrical power is greater than 50 kW and less than 500 kW.
An opportunity to quickly reduce the formalities related to investments in renewable sources with a capacity of up to 1 MW are work on the next anti-crisis package.
Currently, there are 729 companies in the register of energy producers in small RES installations with a capacity of up to 500 kW, kept by the Energy Regulatory Office, some of which operate several installations.
It is the responsibility of the producers included in this group to submit to the Energy Regulatory Office quarterly reports on the amount of electricity generated, including sold to the obligated seller and final consumers.