
Renewable power sources lined 67% of Poland’s energy demand on Sunday afternoon. That was a document share in a rustic that usually produces nearly all of its electrical energy from coal however has been slowly shifting in direction of lower-emission sources.
The information comes as coal costs have risen by 300% since final 12 months, stoking fears of a doable power disaster and pushing the federal government to final week introduce a assured worth of coal for house heating.
On Sunday, nonetheless, photovoltaic panels, wind generators and different renewable sources helped to keep away from the burning of 1,000 wagons of coal, experiences power trade information service Wysokie Napiecie.
Coal drops from 87% to 71% of Poland’s power combine in a decade, with renewables as much as 17%
In response to knowledge from Poland’s nationwide grid operator analysed by the web site, at 2 p.m and three p.m. renewable technology was overlaying 67% of home electrical energy use after deducting the demand for pumped-storage hydroelectric energy vegetation, which function a storage for surplus energy
Greater than 10 GW was offered by renewables at that time, together with peak photovoltaic technology of 6.2 GW (out of 10 GW put in capability) and peak wind technology of 4.6 GW (out of simply over 7 GW of put in capability).
Regardless of the document share of renewable power in overlaying the demand of home customers, the ability system labored with out disruption.
As a result of excessive technology of power from renewable sources, demand for coal-fired energy vegetation throughout the day fell sufficiently to scale back wholesale electrical energy costs on the Polish market to €53/MWh, whereas costs in neighbouring Germany and Lithuania had been at €60 and €109/MWh respectively.
Because of this, Poland was capable of export as much as 1.2 GW of internet energy within the afternoon, and purchase cheaper power from its neighbours within the morning and night, when costs on the Polish market had been greater than theirs, notes Wysokie Napiecie.
Poland, the EU’s most coal-dependent nation, noticed its proportion of electrical energy generated from renewables develop from 6.9% in 2010 to 16.9% in 2021, whereas coal’s share dropped from 86.6% to 70.8% over the identical interval.
Poland information highest ever photo voltaic power manufacturing
Photo voltaic has seen significantly fast progress in recent times due to state subsidies for households that set up panels. However new laws launched in April make house installations extra complicated and fewer financially rewarding, which has considerably lowered demand for brand new panels.
In the meantime, whereas onshore wind capability grew quickly till 2015, new laws launched the next 12 months made it very tough to construct new generators. The federal government and state power companies are, nonetheless, growing plans for the nation’s first offshore wind farms on its Baltic coast.
Poland generated document quantity of electrical energy from wind in January
Fundamental photograph credit score: Karsten Würth / Unsplash

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She beforehand labored for Reuters.