<article><p class="lead">Poland's installed solar generation capacity doubled year on year to reach 5.5GW at the end of July, but its strong growth has raised challenges for the stability of the Polish power system, which continues to depend on less flexible coal and lignite-fired plants.</p><p>Solar capacity rose by 300MW in July and is set to reach 6GW by the end of this year, according to Polish grid operator PSE. The strong growth was fuelled by household solar installations, which account for about 80pc of total solar capacity, although the development of larger-scale commercial solar farms has also gathered pace.</p><p>Installed solar capacity has already exceeded the target of 5.1GW for 2025 set out in Poland's energy policy, which was adopted earlier this year. PSE now estimates than in 2025, Poland will have at least 10GW and potentially as much as 15GW of solar installed capacity.</p><p>The expansion of onshore wind power has been slower, although it has already reached 7GW of installed capacity. A total of 13GW of renewable capacity — which is weather-dependent and unstable — has challenged the stability of the country's power system.</p><p>This year, on Easter Monday, PSE had to reduce renewables output and pay compensation to affected units for the first time to maintain system stability. PSE warned that more renewable reductions will be necessary unless Poland builds more flexible gas-fired power plants.</p><p>Poland currently has about 1.7GW of installed gas-fired capacity, compared with about 30GW of coal and lignite-fired plants. There are some gas-fired plants under construction but these are mainly combined-heat-and-power plants, which are less flexible.</p><p>The sharp growth of solar energy has intensified calls to amend Poland's support mechanism to encourage the development of more flexible gas-fired plants, as well as to offer a pricing mechanism to stimulate consumption linked to peaks in renewable generation. The Polish parliament committee has already started to discuss possible changes to the energy law, although the timeframe for potential amendments is unclear.</p><p class="bylines"><i>By Tomasz Stepien</i></p></article>
