• Energy Research
• 7. Clean energy close
• Energies close
• University of Szczecin close

In recent years, the dynamic development of renewable energy has been visible all over the world, including Poland. Wind energy is one of the most used renewable energy sources. In Poland, by 2030, it is planned to commission at least six offshore wind farms with a total capacity of 3.8 GW. It is estimated that these investments will increase Poland’s GDP by approximately PLN 60 billion and increase tax revenues by PLN 15 billion. Therefore, they could be a strong stimulus for the development of the Polish economy and may be of great importance in recovering from the crisis caused by the economic constraints related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is a multi-criteria evaluation of the investments planned in Poland in offshore wind farms and identification of potentially the most economically effective investments. To account for the uncertainty in this decision problem, a modified fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method was used and a comprehensive sensitivity analysis was performed. As a result of the research, a ranking of the considered projects was constructed and the most preferred investments were identified. Moreover, it has been shown that all the investments considered are justified and recommended.

The purpose of the article is to define the risk factors in cogeneration projects and to demonstrate that a lack of sufficient identification of risks in different phases affects project implementation. A theoretical study is conducted, which aims to identify risk factors in cogeneration projects, based on case studies of such projects in Poland. The study offers a view at CHP (combined heat and power) projects as extremely dependent on the external environment of the organisation. These projects are subject to many external regulations due to their environmental impact and dynamically changing technical aspects. The biggest technical errors occur at the planning and construction stages. The biggest economic and financial risks occur at the execution stage after 2% and 3% of additional design costs occur, respectively. The authors estimated the risks at different stages of the project and concluded that the total cost of failure in correct identification of the risks at the planning stage exceeded PLN 1.5 billion, which amounted to almost 60% of the total additional costs of materialised project risk. Consequently, the biggest challenges in the area of CHP project management at the planning stage are a thorough identification of risks, and the pricing and planning reactions to risk.

Energy and climate policies play an increasingly important role in the world in the era of climate change and rising energy prices. More often, the importance of the development of the energy sector and climate protection is seen from the point of view of the expenditures that will need to be absorbed in the economy, with the potential for increased energy prices. However, it should be remembered that this is also related to the issue of fuel poverty and the inability to meet basic energy needs by parts of society. The aim of the paper is to assess the importance of macroeconomic policy instruments in reducing fuel poverty, using Poland as an example. It will be examined whether and how the government influenced this phenomenon (directly or indirectly), through which instruments, and which instruments (fiscal, monetary or energy-climate policy) played the most important role in shaping the scale of fuel poverty in Poland, with an emphasis on the role of monetary and fiscal policy instruments. The analysis covered the period from 2004 to mid-2021. The results of the research showed that in Poland there is a lack of policy directly aimed at reducing fuel poverty, and the government affects the scale of fuel poverty indirectly mainly through macroeconomic policy instruments, i.e., fiscal and monetary policy instruments. The main and most effective instruments for reducing fuel poverty in Poland are social transfers. Other instruments that have a statistically significant impact on this poverty rate are the level of tax burdens and short-term interest rates. The analysis also revealed some opportunities for effective fuel poverty reduction policies. It was proven that in addition to fiscal policy, monetary policy, which would stimulate a decrease in short-term interest rates, is also an effective way to reduce the fuel poverty rate in Poland.

Many factors influence the prices of energy commodities and the value of energy and fuel companies. Among them there are the following factors: economic, social, environmental and political, and recently also the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the paper is to examine what the probability and intensity of a decrease in the prices of shares of energy and fuel companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (Poland) was during the first wave of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020. The study used the survival analysis methods: the Kaplan-Meier estimator, the test of equality of duration curves and the Cox non-proportional hazards model. The analysis showed that the probability and intensity of price decline of energy and fuel companies in the initial period was the same as that of other companies. The differences become apparent only after 50 days from the established maximum of their value. The risk of price declines in energy and fuel companies increased significantly. This situation was related both to a temporary reduction in demand for energy and fuels, pandemic restrictions introduced in individual countries and the behaviour of stock market investors.

In today’s social, economic, and political reality, it cannot be overlooked that the energy self-sufficiency of municipalities not only optimizes the lives of the inhabitants of the municipality but also, in a broader perspective, the services provided by the municipality. The sustainable development of a municipality will therefore depend on its degree of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Economic and technological considerations are not sufficient for the municipality to achieve optimal energy independence without normative conditions. The current (2021/2022) trends in electricity prices and in the development of national and international policies and strategies for electricity generation from renewable energy sources also make the change in the energy market structure toward distributed generation. The main objective of this paper is a theoretical analysis of the legal solutions in force in Poland that allow building energy self-sufficiency in municipalities and their adequacy to the current economic, technological, and political conditions. The scientific discussion will focus here on research problems related to the impact of the national regulations on the gradual assumption of control by municipalities over the generation and distribution of electricity with regard to energy produced in RES installations and the independence of municipalities from the national energy management and supply system.

Renewable energy consumption is the call by United Nation Sustainable Development Goals, and sustainable consumption is the only solution for the future. This study found that the solution to the framed problem has a requirement to categorize the green consumer value parameters in hierarchy of importance for five specific RESs and their alignment with environment policy based on a comparison of Poland and India. The study revealed the importance of each criterion for renewable energy sources providing, a comparative table of Poland and India. The methodological approach used secondary data for selecting countries, and primary data are used for statistical analysis of Automatic Linear Modelling. The research concludes that the CRITERIA4 is one of the most important that emerged with all five RESs for Poland and three RESs for India. Both countries are aligned with the UN sustainable development goals and are switching over to all means of sustainability. Poland scores a higher value of importance compared to India, which justifies the awareness of consumers.

The aim of this paper is to find the most important aspects of introducing zero-emission and low-carbon solutions in urban bus transport, as well as their availability. Beyond the economic aspects related to energy sources and consumption, the paper focuses on their impact on people and the environment. There is also an attempt to estimate the scale of the impact of changes in the structure of the energy sources of buses in urban transport compared with all the means of transport operating in a given area, as well as a justification for these changes. We also conducted a survey of bus passengers to check their awareness of the changes taking place and their attitude towards them.

In the current context of energy transition, the first step to ensuring the cost-effectiveness and reliable operation of a network is the use of appropriate planning tools [...]

This paper focuses on the analysis of the EU carbon trading scheme and its impacts on regional power system development and penetration of renewable energy sources (RES). The aim of the article is to analyze the forecasts of carbon dioxide (EUA) prices for the years 2019–2030 and to apply the results of this forecast in regional power system planning. The data employed in this paper come from many sources, including empirical data of the selected analytical companies, such as Thomson Reuters among others. The current low prices for carbon dioxide emission rights do not encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide, and do not have a significant impact on the penetration of renewables. This paper presents the results of two scenarios (for 2021 and 2030) developed after the analysis of the EUA price impact on penetration of renewable energy sources in West-Pomeranian region assuming different electricity production and the EUA price forecasts. The results of two regional energy development scenarios run for 2021 and 2030 indicate changes in the structure of renewables in West-Pomeranian region. The results also show that the increase of EUA price has a significant impact on the increase of costs for power production and increase of unit cost of the installed 1GWh. In addition, the forecasted EUA price in 2030 is 3% lower as compared with 2021, which has its impact on the increased share of electricity produced by co-firing biomass with other fossil—from 42% to 68% in the electricity generation structure of West-Pomeranian region.