Amendments to the act on spatial planning and development may block the PV industry for years

The current energy crisis and rising energy prices are largely caused by lack of sufficient amounts of RES capacity in the national power system. Therefore, we need measures to facilitate new investments and reduce administrative barriers. Unfortunately, the changes proposed in the amendment to the act on spatial planning and development may seriously slow down the development of solar energy in Poland for many years.

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has put European countries in a difficult situation of sudden need to accelerate the energy transformation. That is why the EU is working on a system of administrative facilitations that will allow faster fulfillment of national RES targets. In a situation where our energy system relies to such a large extent on Russian resources – we cannot afford to slow down the development of the solar energy sector in Poland.

Meanwhile, the Polish government seems to be going in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe and, instead of investment facilitation, we are getting new restrictions. The solar energy industry is particularly concerned about the plans of the Ministry of Development and Technology. The draft act on spatial planning and development provides for the obligation to locate RES installations based on the MPZP (local spatial development plan), in the case of solar installations with an installed capacity of more than 1 MW (Article 14 (6a)). In the opinion of the Polish Photovoltaic Association, it is necessary to locate PV farms on the basis of the current regulations – on the basis of the decision on development conditions – until the communes adopt Local Spatial Development Plans. Otherwise, we will have effects comparable to the so-called the 10H act for wind energy, i.e. a long-term investment gap. The case of the so-called the distance act is the best proof that the regulations blocking the development of clean and domestic energy sources do not work in the long run. However, the fact that the 10H rule is currently to be liberalized will not eliminate the many years of lagging behind in wind energy in Poland. We do not want the potential of solar energy to be wasted in the same way. The development of solar energy – sustainable but not hindered by legal regulations – is in the best interest of Poland.