Eastern Europe’s Solar Boom Explained

From TLDR News

 

A factor I had forgotten is energy independence from Russia.   In a sense, that applies to everybody.  Not having to buy oil and gas from dictatorial, blood-soaked petro-states has to be a plus.

Ukraine and Poland united

 I don't know who painted this picture, but if you do, let me know in the comments.

Poland and Ukraine have both suffered under Russia tyranny.  As have the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.  Which is why they are so determined to resist Russian aggression.  

Support for renewables even in Poland

Turów coal mine, Poland.
Source: Wikipedia

Poland is Europe's major coal producer, and opposition there to renewables has been strong.  But that's now changing:

As he stood outside a coal mine during a campaign stop last month, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki surprisingly touted the project’s green credentials. “Without investments like this one, we wouldn’t have renewable energy and other industries that we are betting on,” Morawiecki told a crowd of miners in Silesia, the country’s coal heartland.

The mention of renewable energy at all, in the weeks leading up to an election on Sunday, marks a change of tone in the country, which gets most of its power from coal and has previously stifled renewable investments. With wind and solar costs plummeting and an increasing public backlash against some of the dirtiest air in the region, the government is changing its rhetoric on energy and looking to the European Union to help finance the transition.

Morawiecki’s Law & Justice party came to power in 2015 thanks in part to support from miners. In its first year, the government nearly halted the fast-developing onshore wind industry with restrictive laws. At the same time, it revived a 1 gigawatt coal-fired power plant project in Ostroleka — whose backers now struggle to find financing.

A tripling in the price of emission permits last year also hit Polish coal hard, with wholesale power prices currently about 25% above levels in neighboring Germany. The government stymied the impact to consumers by freezing household electricity rates and limiting the increase for businesses.

Then last year, the government held an auction for new onshore wind projects. Developers, including state-owned utility PGE SA and international players EDP Renovaveis SA and Innogy SE bid to sell power at prices that were far below what the market had expected. “That was a big turning point,” said Bart Dujczynski, founder of Proventus Renewables Ltd., which advises on renewable energy projects in Poland. “It made opposition to renewables quite difficult to justify because economically, it was very attractively priced.”

Energy Minister Krzysztof Tchorzewski, a major proponent of coal power, has championed a 1 billion-zloty ($255 million) solar subsidy program. Additionally, the government plans to auction a record 3.4 gigawatts of renewable energy this year. The country’s photovoltaic capacity passed the 1 gigawatt mark on Oct. 1, up 158% from a year earlier, as households and enterprises sped up installations of solar panels.

[read more here]

One important factor in increasing support for transitioning to renewables in Poland and Germany has been the promise of government support from the EU for coal miners and mining communities.  Left parties please note—it's not enough to champion renewables.  We must also help those who will lose their jobs because of renewables, if we are to get wider support for the green revolution.

Polish utilities transiting to renewables

From IEEFA:

Poland’s largest power generators are slowly waking up to what many of their European peers have long internalized as part of their strategies: that coal may not be king for much longer.

State-run utilities like PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA and TAURON Polska Energia SA have recently started to complement their coal-heavy portfolios with wind and solar power. The moves come as political and investor pressure around climate change is mounting and as rising carbon prices under the EU’s emissions trading scheme are squeezing earnings from the large hard coal and lignite-fired power stations that still produce most of Poland’s power.

In a bow to EU climate policies, Tauron said May 27 that it would replace most of its coal-burning plants with renewables over the next decade, lifting wind and solar capacity to 65% of its power generation by 2030. At the moment, the utility runs 4,291 MW of thermal power plant capacity, compared with only 334 MW from wind farms and hydropower plants.

Analysts are expecting a similar shift at state-owned PGE, by far the largest power producer in Poland, with an installed capacity of over 16,000 MW. The company will release its own strategic update in August.

But on a May 29 call with analysts, Henryk Baranowski, president of the board and CEO of PGE, touted that the company had just signed what it says is Poland’s first corporate power purchase agreement, selling the output of a planned 5-MW solar farm to the operator of a local sulfur mine. Baranowski also said that the utility wants to develop 2,500 MW of additional PV capacity over the next decade.

“This is of course a longer prospect, reaching 2030,” he said. “However, it is important that we have already taken the first steps toward that goal.” The company has also been busy looking for partners to build some of the first offshore wind farms in the country, competing with Polish energy group Polenergia SA.

Poland's best wind resources are offshore in the Baltic, in the country's north.  (Nice chart from an excellent source: Global Wind Atlas)

Poland wind resources. Source: Global Wind Atlas

Its solar resources on the other hand are in the south (logically) concentrated in the south-east.

Poland's solar resources
Source

There's no reason why Poland shouldn't easily reach 50% renewables, as its neighbour Germany has.  After that, they will likely need at least some seasonal storage, as most high-latitude countries will.