Building begins on 64 MW unsubsidized Polish solar plant

• The project, readied to be commissioned this year, will certainly sell power to an unspecified commercial customer under a power acquisition contract.

German renewables company BayWa re has started creating a 64.4 MW solar plant in Witnica, a community in western Poland near the German border.

The project, set to be completed this year, will not gain from Poland's renewables rewards plan and will rather market power to an unspecified industrial client under a yet-to-be-finalized power acquisition arrangement (PPA), BayWa re claimed.

"Following our effective completion, in the last few years, of projects in Spain and Germany-- which were understood without aids-- we have now gotten to the factor where photovoltaic power is valuable in Poland, also," said Benedikt Ortmann, worldwide supervisor of solar projects at BayWa re.

Few solar PPAs have been negotiated in Poland to day, with the very first revealed in June last year by the PGE Energia Odnawialna renewables company of state-owned utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE). The power firm claimed at the time, a 5 MW, 10ha solar plant would certainly be built outside the nationwide renewables public auction scheme on land owned by chemicals company Grupa Azoty Siarkopol in Świętokrzyskie Osiek, a community in the Staszów area of Świętokrzyskie district, in southern-central Poland. PGE in September authorized a letter of intent with silver and copper miner KGHM Polska Miedź SA for 500 MW of solar generation ability on the latter's sites.

Additional unsubsidized projects have actually been announced by coal firms including Poland's 4th biggest power business, Enea, which will certainly construct a 30 MW solar plant for the Bogdanka coal mine it holds a bulk risk in. In July last year, power business Tauron Polska Energia SA said it would certainly set up ground-mounted PV at its obsolete sites. Electric utility Zespół Elektrowni Pątnów-Adamów-Konin SA stated in November, it would certainly deploy a large range PV plant at a depleted location of the extensive Adamów brown coal mine in Turek area.

Poland could reach its target of 7.8 GW of solar capacity by 2030-- as described in the National Plan for Energy and also Climate-- as early as the center of the decade, according to a current report by the Instytut Energetyki Odnawialnej.