2017 Polish residential PV grew by 81.3 MW

Over 12,500 new residential PV installations with a combined capacity of over 81 MW were connected to the grid in Poland in 2017, most of which were located in eastern and southern Poland.

These are the new figures released by local solar association, SBF Polska PV, which used data from Polish power distributors, PGE, Tauron Dystrybucja, Enea and Energa.

The results represent growth of 24% compared to 2016, when new additions for “micro-installations” totaled 65.6 MW. Of the 12,518 PV systems installed under net metering (up to 40 kW) last year, 4,158 were connected to PGE’s network, while Tauron, Enea, Energa saw the connection of 4,096, 1,802 and 2,223 systems, respectively.

The cumulative capacity of PV under net metering reached 172.5 MW as of the end of December 2017, according to SBF Polska.

The Polish government is currently supporting solar through net metering (up to 40 kW) and an auction mechanism for large-scale projects (over 40 kW). The two schemes, which replaced the green certificate mechanism, were introduced alongside a new renewable energy law in July 2016.

Under the net metering scheme, operators of PV systems up to 10 kW are refunded 80% for each kilowatt they inject into the electricity system, while owners of PV installations ranging in size between 10 kW and 40 KW are refunded 70%.

Poland had around 200 MW of cumulative installed PV capacity at the end of 2016.