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Poland

MARKET STRUCTURE

 
Progress towards the RES-E target in Poland is slow and the penalties designed to ensure an increased supply of green electricity have not been adequately used. Despite the high potential of hydropower plants, they have not been fully used to date; biomass resources (in the form of forestry residues, agricultural residues and energy crops) are plentiful in Poland, and landfill gas is also promising.

MAIN SUPPORTING POLICIES

 
The Polish RES-E policy includes the following mechanisms:

• Tradable Certificates of Origin were introduced by the April 2005 amendment of the Law on Energy (1997).
  
• The Obligation for Power Purchase from Renewable Sources (2000, amended in 2003) involves a requirement on energy suppliers to provide a certain minimum share of RES-E (3.1 per cent in 2005, 3.6 per cent in 2006, 4.8 per cent in 2007 and 7.5 per cent in 2010). Failure to comply with this legislation leads, in theory, to the enforcement of a penalty; in 2005, this was not adequately enforced.
• An excise tax exemption on RES-E was introduced in 2002.

FUTURE TARGETS

 
Poland has a RES-E and primary energy target of 7.5 per cent by 2010. Steady but modest progress is being made with regard to the RES-E target, since the RES-E share of gross energy consumption was about 2.6 per cent in 2005, compared to 2.2 per cent in 2004 and 1.6 per cent in 1997. The potential of hydropower, biomass and landfill gas is high in Poland.