Poland to have 14.5GW of solar PV installations by 2030

Poland wind turbine market

Poland is expected to have around 14.5GW of solar PV installations by the end of 2030.

Poland’s incentive measures – such as the My Electricity program — will result in solar contributing more than 20 percent in the country’s capacity mix, according to GlobalData.

Mohit Prasad, project manager at GlobalData, said: “Poland’s cumulative solar PV installations – 3.9GW as of 1 Jan 2021 – represents a massive threefold jump from a year ago.”

Poland’s cumulative solar PV installations totalled 562MW (1.2 percent of the capacity mix) while coal-fired capacity was 31.7GW (around 70 percent of the capacity mix). The contribution of solar PV to the capacity mix has increased to 8.1 percent at the end of 2020.

Poland has witnessed two consecutive years of dry weather (2018 and 2019), followed by a warm winter in 2019/2020 and a very dry spring in 2020. This resulted in a severe drought, which is bad news for a country that produces most of its electricity through coal-fired plants, some of which use river water for cooling.

The My Electricity program was the government’s answer to shift focus towards alternative sources of energy. The subsidy covers up to 50 percent of the installation costs of building solar PV plants ranging from 2kW to 10kW and up to PLN5,000.