Publication of the Offshore Wind Bill and Next Steps
After many months of deliberation, on 15 January 2020, the Ministry of State Assets published the long-awaited Offshore Wind Bill, the publication of which marks the beginning of the legislative process entailing a 30-day stakeholder feedback period, which is due to end on 14 February. The Offshore Wind Bill (also “the Bill”) is intended to govern offshore wind investment, as well as defining the support mechanisms for such projects.
Offshore wind farms in Poland are meant to lead Poland’s energy transformation for decarbonisation by increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix, as well as significantly contributing to minimising the risk of capacity shortages. The Polish government has targeted a 15% share of renewables in its energy mix for 2020 (which in all likelihood will not be attained). By 2030, an ambitious 21% share is targeted.It is noteworthy that Poland has only recently embarked on developing the Baltic Sea potential for offshore wind farms and that no offshore wind farm has, as of yet, been completed in Poland, although several projects owned by domestic and international energy operators are in the pipeline (we recently took a look at the prospects for offshore wind in Poland and the latest developments for this technology in the Polish energy sector in our paper titled “The Polish Baltic Sea Offshore Wind Potential: When Will the Dedicated Support Scheme Mechanism for Offshore Wind in Poland Be Presented?” in May last year). The Baltic Sea potential for offshore wind has been estimated to be approx. 10GW and the Offshore Wind Bill provides for a 25-year bilateral CFD support mechanism (compared to only 15 years for other renewable technologies) with a fixed price set by the government. The CFDs are to be awarded more than 9 GW by 2028 in two phases:
FULL Story at National Law Review.