Factors Determining the Development of Prosumer Photovoltaic Installations in Poland

Abstract

The development of energy production from renewable sources includes the production of energy from photovoltaic installations by prosumers. In Europe, RES development is driven by political goals and requires subsidies during the deployment period, at least as long as the cost of renewable electricity does not reaches grid parity. The study attempts to determine the importance of factors in the development of energy production by prosumers from PV installations in Polish regions. In 2019, the ‘Moj Prad’ program was introduced, applying subsidies to investment costs and the settlement of energy production in the net-metering system. Almost 900 thousand prosumer PV installations were built by the end of 2021, with a total capacity of 5.9 GW. Solar energy share grew from 0.1 to 2.1%. Spatial econometrics models were use in research to determine factors of prosumer PV systems development in Poland (at NUTS-2). Spatial regimes were found in the studied regions, as indicated by a positive autocorrelation (0.75). Considering the pseudo-R-square co-efficient, we can conclude that the spatial error, i.e., factors not included in the GNS model, constitutes approximately 10%. The economic variables included in the Mansky model, i.e., level of salaries and GDP, explain 90% of the variability of installed PV capacity (Nagelkerke pseudo-R-squared value is 0.906). The level of development of prosumer photovoltaic installations (in W per capita) in regions depends primarily on economic factors represented by the level of salaries in a given region. With the increase in salaries by one unit, we also have an increase in installed power capacity in watts per person by 3.52. Surprisingly, the region’s overall wealth did not matter, as the relative number of installations in regions with lower GDP was higher than in others. One can explain that the individual income of households is more important for increasing the number of prosumer installations than the income of the regional economy. The increase in the number of installations in one region contributed to the subsequent increase in their number in neighboring regions.

Evaluating the Progress of Renewable Energy Sources in Poland: A Multidimensional Analysis

“…What is more, biomethane has the potential to be used in the Polish district heating system. The implementation of this investment is planned for the second half of 2024 [47][48][49]. The electricity production from various renewable sources in Poland in 2021 and 2022 is presented in Figure 3.…”

“…The development of photovoltaic installations in poviats in Poland is in different phases, but in recent years a clear upward trend has been observed. Many private and state investors show interest in the construction of photovoltaic installations, which is the result of the falling costs of production of photovoltaic panels [49,51]. Figure 12 presents changes in the spatial differentiation of RES installation capacity by poviat (LAU) in 2018-2021 (Figure 12).…”

Determinants of Return-on-Equity (ROE) of Biogas Plants Operating in Poland

“…Based on the trends in the costs of renewable energy systems production, it can be said that LCOE from PV installation has decreased in the last 10 years by almost 80%, and from onshore wind systems by 30%. LCOE from biogas did not change in the last decade [26,27]. The biogas energy offer is, thus, becoming less competitive, and supporting it is getting more and more expensive for governments.…”

Financial Analysis of Household Photovoltaic Self-Consumption in the Context of the Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) in Portugal

“…The paper presented in [3] intends to give an additional contribution to the subject by investigating the economic profitability of different residential PV systems configurations regarding different Portuguese prosumer's profiles. The study presented in [4] attempts to determine the importance of factors in the development of energy production by prosumers from PV installations in Polish regions.…”