During June 13-15, 2022, representatives of the Secretariat and some Member Companies of the UWEA took part in the largest wind event in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe in 2022, organized by the Polish Wind Energy Association (PWEA) and supported by the Ministry of Climate and Environment of Poland. The UWEA became the main international partner of the PWEA 2022 conference. Generally, the event was attended by more than 1,500 participants, arrived from all over Europe.
The key topics of this year’s Conference included unavoidable climate change and the role of wind energy in the process of energy transformation of Poland and Europe, the use of renewable energy for large-scale production of green hydrogen or grid connection issues and business perspectives for cPPA. There has been also the topic of offshore wind energy, which is seen as an important element in ensuring Poland’s energy security in the coming years. Speakers also touched on more technical issues such as simplification of the grid connection procedure, prospects for national manufacture of steel structures and challenges of maritime logistics and installation. The dynamics of wind discussions was maintained by daily activities, including sports games, media presentation of industry reports and famous singers performances.
Giles Dickson, CEO of WindEurope, and Ruslana, Ukrainian singer and Global Ambassador of 100% Renewable Energy opened the PWEA 2022 conference Thus, Giles Dickson highlighted that “Poland has to urgently remove the 10H-distance rule which is currently excluding 98% of Polish territory from any wind energy development. The Government must facilitate the permitting of new onshore wind farms. There are many lessons to learn from other countries.”
Ruslana, in turn, called on European governments to urgently switch to 100% clean energy sources: “Putin uses energy as a weapon for further blackmailing the whole world. Today, clean energy is not only about the environment, but also about the security. We should choose clean energy and energy independence!”
Ukrainian-Polish Round Table hosted by the UWEA in cooperation with PWEA was one of the important events of the first day of the conference. Bringing together Ukrainian and Polish RES companies, the UWEA raised the issue of prospects for Ukraine’s post-war recovery through implementing joint Ukrainian-Polish green projects, discussed the key challenges and benefits of export-import trade relations between countries, and the role of international financial institutions in creating powerful business climate in Ukraine.
The Ukraine speakers included Wärtsilä Energy, KNESS, MCL Group, Greenville and Dentons, while Polish experts were represented by such companies and organisations as ONZ and Orlen, the Polytechnic of Lublin, the Jagiellonian University, the Forum Energii and the Polish Energy Exchange (TGE) which comments related to electricity trading attracted much attention of the audience.
Mykyta Vyshnevskyi, Market Operations Director at the NPC Ukrenergo and Global Ambassador of 100% Renewable Energy Ruslana also joined the discussion.
Kateryna Knysh, Head of the UWEA Analytical department, who presented the prospects for post-war recovery of Ukraine’s power sector trough RES deployment, and Monika Morawiecka, Senior Advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project, who told about ways to ensure the necessary flexibility and the reconstruction of the power system through electricity trading, moderated the Round Table talks.
Grzegorz Zielinski, Director, Head of Energy Europe, EBRD Poland, reaffirmed the EBRD’s intention to finance not only Ukraine’s post-war energy recovery but also future green projects in Ukraine.
Commenting the existing export potential of Ukraine’s integrated power system, Director at the NPC Ukrenergo Mykyta Vyshnevskyi noted that “in order to unleash Ukraine’s full export potential, it is necessary to ensure transparent commercial exchange with the EU countries in accordance with the European rules, which, in particular, stipulate for the non-discriminatory access for all market players to interconnectors. Strict adherence to the “green” course is one of the priorities of Ukrenergo as a transmission system operator of Ukraine.”
“Ukraine’s post-war recovery has to comply with the REPowerEU Plan and wind power should play a key role in this,” underlined Malgosia Bartosik, Deputy CEO of WindEurope.
Representatives of the Ukrainian wind power companies stressed their readiness to cooperate with the Polish companies in implementing joint green projects. Thus, Sergii Kravchuk from KNESS, the first company in Ukraine which has put into operation an industrial energy storage, stressed that “in any case, increasing the share of RES logically entails the need to use such balancing capacities as, in particular, energy storage systems. So, this area of collaboration is very promising for future cooperation between our countries.”
Mykola Herasymenko, Head of the MCL Group focused on the development of hydrogen projects and invited Polish business for cooperation: “Practical experience in developing industrial RE facilities gave us the opportunity to begin the development of “wind+hydrogen” project. Today our project provides for construction of a 144 MW wind and a 10 MW electrolyzer. The first phase of the project is ready to build.”
Referring to the comment made by Mykyta Vyshnevskyi on promising regions for the implementation of joint Ukrainian-Polish projects, Piotr Kosior, Vice President of Greenville Poland, told about his company’s “green” projects development in Western Ukraine.
Igor Petryk Senior market Development Manager at Wärtsilä Energy, summarised the discussion: “According to Wärtsilä’s modelling, the cheapest way to increase Europe’s energy independence is to maximase the use of renewables. In the study Europe’s Energy Future, Wärtsilä shows that doubling the renewable power production would cut the consumption of expensive gas by 47% and reduce the electricity cost.”
The Ukrainian Wind Energy Association expresses its gratitude to the Polish Wind Energy Association for its support and hopes for effective and mutually beneficial cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian wind energy companies in the nearest future!
