Polish photovoltaic farms reached a record level of energy production in March, while wind power plants recorded their best ever result in February.  According to data from Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne (PSE), on 8 March 2024 installations producing energy from the sun generated 10.2 GWh of electricity in one hour.

The instantaneous record for production from solar energy was slightly more – around 10.33 GWh at 12.20 p.m. The surplus energy was exported to neighbouring countries and PSE did not have to shut down any photovoltaic installations due to excessive production.

The previous hourly record for photovoltaic production was set on 6 September 2023, when 9.275 GWh of energy was produced at 13h.

At the end of December 2023, the installed PV capacity in Poland was 17 GW. This includes large-scale PV power plants of 1.1 GW and small prosumer installations of 15.9 GW compared to 2022, the installed capacity increased by 5 GW during the year.

The wind power industry can also consider February to have been very positive. And overall, the whole winter was very favourable for windmills. Electricity from wind was generated at the highest rate ever, and there was a year-on-year increase in wind power than in windmills themselves. When the Baltic farms are commissioned, wind will have the potential to supply up to half of Poland’s electricity.

In February, wind farms produced a total of 2.64 TWh of electricity and this accounted for as much as 20.5 % of the production of the entire domestic power industry. In comparison, a year ago in the same month there was 2.22 TWh of electricity from windmills, or 17.1 % of the market. The year-on-year increase in production was 18.8 %.

The wind power industry, which is being developed in Poland, is to gradually replace lignite coal-fired power plants. They are the most emission-intensive and therefore most burdened by the cost of buying CO2 emission allowances.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński