The draft wind farm bill will be submitted for inter-ministerial consultations at the beginning of April, as announced by the Minister of Climate and Environment, Paulina Hennig-Kloska. The Ministry of Environmental Protection also wants to speed up the procedures for implementing onshore wind farm investments
- At the beginning of April this year. the wind farm act will be subject to inter-ministerial consultations. A distance of 500 meters from buildings will be maintained. This was confirmed by the head of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
- The investment process for onshore wind farms in Poland is one of the longest in the entire European Union. I think that today the offices are ready to speed up this process, and we are able to procedurally standardize such provisions, without harming the environment, to make this process faster, says Miłosz Motyka, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Onshore wind energy can play a truly leading role when it comes to ensuring stable access to energy in Poland. This is proven by the numbers in 2016 – 5,790 MW and in 2023 – 9,428 MW, which we obtained from onshore wind farms.
Ultimately, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment wants to produce energy at the level of 14,000 MW, i.e. 14 GW of energy from onshore wind farms in the national power system.
The distance of 500 windmills from buildings will be maintained
For this purpose, it will be necessary to amend not only the Act on renewable energy sources, but also the Act on investments in wind farms.
The amendment to the act I mentioned met the needs of local communities, met the needs of investors, and also met the needs of the power system and our entire energy industry. Of course, there were some changes at the stage of the legislative process that are no longer worth talking about today, but I would like to talk about certain assumptions for the future, because from the analyzes available in the space, including scientific ones, from the analyzes on which we want to base them – because we will always base the legislative process on science, knowledge and hard data – it turns out that we have a certain social consensus, we also have a scientific consensus around the distance that can be designed, but none of the provisions that we will present in the government project, I would also like to emphasize that this year – I believe – will reach the Sejm in the first half of this year, also directly answering the question contained in the chairman’s letter, we hope that we will be able to achieve such a consensus regarding the distance was also included in the government project of 2022, i.e. 500 meters – emphasized Miłosz Motyka, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
This is to guarantee greater generation capacity in the national power system, and also guarantees a change in the functioning of the entire system and therefore an increase in Poland’s energy sovereignty.
Accelerating the investment process in the construction of onshore wind farms
Mirosław Motyka, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, also announced an amendment to the regulations intended not only to facilitate but also to accelerate the construction of wind farms on land.
We are also talking about, because we receive signals from the industry, simplifications when it comes to permitting procedures, and these procedures were also included in the government act of the previous term. We believe that we should move in this direction. This investment process for onshore wind farms in Poland is one of the longest in the entire European Union. I think that today the offices are ready to speed up this process, and we are able to procedurally standardize such provisions, without harming the environment, to make this process faster. This is what entrepreneurs are calling for, this is what local governments are calling for, as they want specific benefits from the construction of on-land farms – summed up Miłosz Motyka, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
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