Polish wind power seen blooming after EU enlargement
Date: 21-Jun-02
Country: GERMANY
Author: Birgitte Dyrekilde
"Poland is a future market, but not until in three-four years," Claus Roegild, eastern European sales manager at Danish wind turbine maker NEG Micon told Reuters at a four-day wind energy trade fair in Hamburg.
"Pressure from the EU to make Poland reach its green energy target is a decisive factor," Roegild added.
Poland, heavily reliant on coal-fired power plants, aims to cover 7.5 percent of its energy sales by renewable energy by 2010 versus around two percent in 2001, indicating that green energy capacity should expand by around 4,000 MW in the next eight years, Roegild said.
"It will be supplied by biomass and notably wind," he added.
Poland, the largest EU candidate with 40 million people, hopes to complete talks on EU membership in Copenhagen at the end of the year, paving the way for membership by 2004.
According to a newly published wind study from the German wind energy institute, DEWI, installed wind turbines worldwide will amount to 120,000 MW by 2010 - corresponding to the output of at least 100 nuclear power stations.
This compares with 25,000 MW at end-2001. Among the most important future markets are Spain, Italy, France, Poland and Turkey, the survey showed.
Wojciech Glocko, head of privately owned Polish wind farm developer EPA, said that conditions for wind farm pioneers in Poland at present were difficult.
"Development and modernization of the grid is a must, but who will cover the costs? And we need common rules for wind farm planning," he said.
QUEUE FOR POLISH WIND DEALS GROWS
Another major obstacle is Poland's free energy prices. Poland operates has no fixed prices for electricity, nor subsidies for wind power and Polish power producers are unwilling to sign contracts for delivery of electricity derived from wind installations for more than one year at a time.
"Wind investors need 10-year contracts with buyers to make wind farms worthwhile," Glocko said.
Financing is also complicated. Poland has installed three wind farms, with a total capacity of 33 MW, based on soft loans and donations from Polish environmental funds.
"In future, only soft loans will be available," Glocko said.
NEG Micon's Roegild said that no future wind farms would be based on Polish funds as interest rates in Poland were too high at around 10-15 percent.
"You need to do your financing work abroad," he said.
And yet the queue for Polish wind power projects is growing.
German wind developer ProVento said the company expects to build a 10 turbine wind farm during in the next two years in cooperation with NEG Micon in Poland.
"The government does not support wind power yet, but we hope they will do so when Poland enters the EU," said ProVento spokesman Andreas Adams.
German utility MVV has teamed up with German wind turbine maker DeWind, which was recently bought by British industrial group FKI, to build up to 10 wind parks on the Polish Baltic coast, each with a 50 MW capacity, by 2006.
Danish power firm Elsam has previously said it planned to build a 30 MW wind farm in Poland.