Polish wind energy: from leap to stall?

Poland, a country with a long history of highly polluting coal-based power generation, is eyeing wind as one of the most promising alternatives to coal for its national energy mix. Although the country showed the second fastest growth in the EU in adding new wind capacity in 2015, this sector is facing investment pullback.

Even though coal mining in Poland contracted significantly in the 1990s and the country has cut its carbon emissions by one third since then, Poland remains Europe’s largest coal producer. Coal- and lignite-fired power plants account for about 80% of the country’s energy supply and employ over a hundred thousand people.

According to a report from the European Environmental Agency on air quality in Europe, air pollution in Poland caused by microscopic particles—PM2.5: particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less—resulted in almost 45,000 premature deaths in 2012 alone. The main sources of PM2.5 emissions are coal and biomass combustion. These emissions have risen in the past decade.

To curb its dependence on fossil fuels, Poland has pledged to produce 15% of its energy consumption through renewable energy sources by 2020, up from the current 12%. The International Renewable Energy Agency believes that, “among the non-biomass renewables options, wind power has the largest potential in Poland”.

NIB financing Energa investments

Energa S.A. is one of the country’s major electricity distributors with the highest share of the renewable energy in the production of electricity, which accounts for 41% of the company’s output.

In recent years, Energa has launched five wind farms with an aggregated capacity of 211 MW. One of them, the 20 MW Myslino wind turbine park in the northwest of the country, has been financed with a EUR 16 million loan from NIB.

“The Bank is contributing to the development of renewable energy sources in many parts of the Baltic Sea region. Poland is part of this region, and we are drawing on the experience of long-standing cooperation with Energa, which operates in central and northern part of Poland”, says Thomas Wrangdahl, First Vice-President and Head of Lending at NIB.

Prior to the loan for the wind park, in 2010, NIB had financed the construction of an electricity distribution network and substations necessary to connect renewable energy sources (primarily wind farms) to the national electricity grid.

Leap ahead of stall?

Still in its infancy, the generation capacity of wind power in Poland has expanded tenfold over the past decade, and had reached 5.1 GW by the end of 2015. That year, the size of the newly installed wind capacity in Poland, 1.27 GW, was the second largest in the EU (after Germany).