Mott's Blog

The Polish law on renewable energy has been a moving target for years. Originally, the law was deliberately delayed to allow the state-owned energy companies to keep receiving support which the European Commission would have stopped if the new law had been notified under the treaty. Now the delays are being triggered by the new government's efforts to amend the program on the fly. The government has convinced itself that what RES capacity is already done and more co-firing will be all that we need. Some additional biogas plant construction (actually a lot in real terms) is strongly supported in their mix. But the classic RES technologies are on their black list. They have been completely persuaded by the coal lobby that these technologies are too unreliable to be major parts of the energy mix. The factual basis for their assumptions is being broadly challenged by the RES sector. Poland will not meet the 2020 target without a serious program that includes the full mix of RES ...

Never make predictions, especially about the future.                                                                          Casey Stengel By now everyone's predictions on the state of the renewable energy support system in Poland are wrong. The new government has gone back to square one and is working on an overhaul of the law passed last April. The European Commission is finalizing a decision on the green certificate program, including support for co-firing and old hydro, and - at the same time - looking into the law passed last April. It is likely that the Commission is discussing the changes in the new law with the Polish Government right now. Adding to the confusion, much of the RES that the new government in Warsaw seems to like is also problematic.      Whether by the c...