It’s no longer just coal – more and more energy in Poland produced from renewable sources!
The current energy situation in Poland is still one of the most controversial situations in our country. Poland tries to keep increasing the portion of energy from renewable sources (RES). Examples of positive effects came from for example Denmark or Germany, the countries that renewable energy took by storm.
According to the TGE Information Platform data, on Monday evening the 26th of December, on Christmas, a historic record was broken in Poland. Production of energy from wind farms in Poland reached 86% of its maximum capacity. The system worked with the highest production of energy from wind in history and the lowest share of big conventional power plants. At this time, the price of energy dropped to a minimum, although it could have fallen even further. Despite all of that, the system did not report any problems and worked seamlessly.
The situation was caused to a great extent by the „Barbara” windstorm passing through Poland – it caused wind gushes of 120 km/h. Due to the fairly low demand for energy during Christmas, wind farms met even 34% of needs of domestic consumers of electric energy – it is a record in the history of our country, as it never happened before that over 1/3 of energy came from RES.
As a result, record-low amount of energy on the market was produced from coal in coal power plants – they were responsible for only 38% of energy supplies, even though a few years ago this was over 60%.
The record energy production from wind and unusually low consumer demand translated into energy trade as well. In the recent two weeks, the prices at Warsaw Power Exchange were usually between around 130PLN/MWh at night and 320PLN/MWh in the evening. However, with lack of wind at peak demand, they jumped up to 700PLN/MWh. There was a need to start costly launching of coal plants (fuel for starting boilers is very expensive) to meet the increased consumer demand at around 17:00. When there was more wind or the demand was lower (during weekends), the prices rose to no more than 250-300PLN/MWh. However, a sharp fall of consumption at Christmas together with an increase of production from wind turbines caused the price to plummet to as little as 100PLN/MWh at peak and little over 71PLN/MWh at the lowest demand.
Energy price would fall even further but for the administrative minimum price of 70PLN/MWh the energy plants are allowed to sell energy at the so-called technical market, so when they supply more energy to the system than it is stated in their sales agreements.
The share of renewable energy sources has more and more importance in our country.
Investment in wind turbines is a viable source of stable revenue and a method for quick capital expansion, without a need for expert knowledge and time for investment services. In the future, it will be easy to sale one’s shares with profit and the value of the company will remain high as long as it generates profit.
