Poland increases subsidies for home solar panels and energy storage

The federal government subsequent month will enhance the quantity of state subsidies out there to households for the set up of photo voltaic panels and power storage, introduced local weather minister Anna Moskwa.

Since 2019, the federal government program Mój Prąd (which means My Electrical energy) has provided subsidies for photo voltaic panels, resulting in an enormous enhance in installations throughout Poland. This 12 months the initiative was expanded to additionally embrace residence power storage, amid the power disaster brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The event of renewable power sources is an efficient prescription for rising power costs after the battle,” Moskwa stated on Tuesday. “Subsequently, on December 15, below the Mój Prąd program, we elevated the subsidy for photovoltaic installations to six,000 zlotys (€1,275) and for power storage to fifteen,000 zlotys (€3,187).”

That represents a doubling of the present most of seven,500 zlotys out there to households for power financial savings below the fourth version of Mój Prąd, which was launched in April. The utmost subsidy for photovoltaics elevated from 4,000 zlotys.

The decision for functions for the fourth version of this system has additionally been prolonged from the tip of December this 12 months to the tip of March subsequent 12 months.

Purposes for subsidies will be submitted by people who generate electrical energy for their very own wants, who’ve an settlement that regulates the introduction of electrical energy generated from their micro-installation to the grid.

At the moment, greater than 1.7 billion zlotys have been allotted to finance greater than 410,000 functions below the venture since its launch in 2019. The federal government estimates that this system has lowered CO2 emissions by 1.9 billion kilograms per 12 months.

As much as 855 million zlotys have been earmarked for the third and fourth editions of this system, working within the years 2021-2023.

Nevertheless, the set up of latest photo voltaic panels fell earlier this 12 months, after the federal government modified rules in a approach that made residence photovoltaics much less financially viable.

Some specialists warn that putting in extra photo voltaic panels won’t remedy the issue of entry to low cost electrical energy, as a result of Poland’s outdated energy grid can’t assist too many prosumers (people who each produces and buys electrical energy).

“Everybody energetic within the power sector realizes that the circumstances should be created to accommodate the brand new quantity of inexperienced power,” Grzegorz Wiśniewski, president of the Renewable Vitality Institute, instructed the monetary information service from Cash.pl.

Aleksander Śniegocki, the pinnacle of the Reform Institute, instructed Notes from Poland earlier this 12 months that “power grids should be denser and smarter, they need to enable demand and provide to be managed”. It requires a “multi-billion greenback funding”.

In addition to photo voltaic, the Polish authorities intends to develop the nation’s first offshore wind farms and undo rules that make it tough to put in offshore wind generators. It additionally not too long ago selected the US and South Korea as companions to develop Poland’s first nuclear energy crops.

Nevertheless, the nation continues to generate round 70% of its electrical energy from coal, which can be utilized by round a 3rd of households for heating.

The federal government not too long ago introduced that it’ll delay the deliberate phaseout of coal – and even the opening of latest coal mines – in response to the present power disaster.

Alicja Ptak is the senior editor of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. He beforehand labored for Reuters.