The Energy Regulatory Authority in Warsaw (URE) has announced the first calls for electricity supplies from renewable energies. On 30th of December this year a total of 1,575,000 megawatt hours of electricity from green power plants of a certain category - including photovoltaic plants - will be auctioned between 8 am and 4 pm. The auction will be launched on the URE website in the coming days. The generators must not have more than one megawatt power. In addition, this specific invitation to tender excludes biomass and biogas plants of any kind. These may, however, participate in a separate tender, which takes place at the same time.
Advantage for photovoltaics
Also, not allowed are installations which deliver more than 3,504 MWh per year of one MW of installed power and at the same time emit no more than 100 kilograms per megawatt hours of carbon dioxide. This is where the fossil-fueled power plants, which burn biomass with them, are emerging. As a rule, these criteria only meet the requirements of water power. These will also receive a separate tender. This means that the solar power systems compete with wind power plants, which in this performance class can hardly stand up to photovoltaics, especially since most wind generators already have a megawatt.
Latest grid connection by 2020
The quantity of energy consumed must be supplied over a period of 15 years after commissioning of the installation. However, the remuneration is paid for no longer than until December 31, 2035, so it is already clear that the plants must be connected to the grid by 2020 at the latest. A total of 744,036,736 Zloty is available for the 1.575 GWh, which can be paid out over the entire delivery period. That is converted 166,324,300 Euro.
Maximum bidding price 10.56 Cents/kWh
This means that the maximum limit of bids is 10.56 Cents/kWh, which can be a reasonable compensation. However, the bid may not exceed the reference price of 465 Zloty (103.90 Euro) per MWh, as determined by the Ministry of Energy in Warsaw. Otherwise the project will be immediately disqualified. In addition, the installations are provided with a feed-in tariff (FIT) which offers the lowest price. Overall, electricity supply contracts are auctioned until the quota is exhausted, whether the total sum for the feed-in tariff has been used up to that point. In the case of two equal prizes, the projects are taken into account in the order of the bid.
FIT for smaller plants up to 16.7 Cents/kWh
It is the first auction of this kind in Poland, since the new Green Electric Power Act in its final version was finally adopted on 28 June this year and entered into force on 1 July 2016. In the auctions only power supplies from plants with an output of more than 40 kW will be auctioned. Smaller generators are considered as mini- or micro-systems in Poland. The electricity from these installations must be purchased by the grid operator for a specific price over a period of 15 years. This is for micro-systems with an output between three and ten kilowatts at 0.65 Zloty (14.5 Cents) per kilowatt hour. The regulation applies until a total newly installed capacity of 500 MW has been reached. Operators of plants with an output of less than three kilowatts will even get 0.75 Zloty (16.7 Cents) per kWh.
Wholesale price for systems between 10 and 40 kW
For systems with a capacity between 10 and 40 kilowatts, the operator of the grid to which the system is connected must pay the wholesale electricity price for the kilowatt hour of solar power fed in. This price in turn refers to the previous quarter and it is announced by the President of the Energy Regulatory Authority. (SU/HCN)
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