Poland: RWE extends wind power portfolio

Construction works of two additional RWE-wind farms in Poland has been successfully finished. Beginning of this month, RWE commissioned the “Opalenica" wind farm in the region of Poznan with seven turbines and a total capacity of 17 MW. Furthermore, yesterday, RWE connected its eighth Polish wind farm “Nowy Staw II” to the grid and started commissioning. The wind farm, located near the city of Gdansk, was constructed in just nine months and is situated close to the existing 45 megawatts (MW) Nowy Staw I wind farm which has been operational since 2013. Nowy Staw II consists of 14 turbines with a total capacity of 28 MW. These two wind farms bring RWE’s capacity in Poland to around 240 MW, which can supply annually an equivalent of 250,000 homes with green electricity.

"Since 2008 we have built eight wind farms in Poland – one of our core markets with fantastic wind conditions and great local acceptance for renewables. “Opalenica” and our second wind farm in Nowy Staw have been the latest projects under the green certificate scheme. Following times of regulatory uncertainty, the new auctioning system will start in 2016. We already have positive experience of similar auctioning systems to the new Polish structure for example in the UK. We believe it is a promising alternative and accordingly plan to participate in upcoming auctions with projects from our development pipeline. These will comprise more than 300 MW of good wind sites", explained Hans Bünting, CEO of RWE Innogy.

The first Polish Renewable Energies Act changed the current subsidy scheme ("green certificates") into a tendering scheme. This auctioning system is to apply for all plants that will start producing energy from 2016 on. Operators of plants which will feed electricity into the grid for the first time before the end of 2015 will be able to choose between the old subsidy scheme and the new system.

Filip Thon, CEO of RWE Polska explains: “Renewables are an important pillar in the future Polish energy market. Therefore, investing in wind projects, the grid infrastructure and other innovative technologies is a huge chance for RWE. Our Polish wind portfolio will enable us to deliver green power products from our own RWE wind farms to more than 250 thousand Polish households.”

According to Polish Wind Energy Association predictions the installed wind power capacity will raise from currently over 4,000 MW to approximately 7,500 MW in 2020.

Besides Opalenica and Nowy Staw II RWE operates six onshore wind farms in Poland, which are located in three regions: Nowy Staw I is situated near the city of Gdansk, Krzecin and Tychowo are located in Western Pomerania, and the wind farms Suwalki, Piecki and Taciewo are situated next to each other in Podlachia in the northeast of Poland.