Draft Regulation on concessions for further offshore projects ready

 The Ministry of Infrastructure has published a draft regulation ready for signature by the Minister with criteria for assessing applications for further concessions for offshore wind farms. Among the proposed criteria is the energy transition rate.

The Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure on the evaluation of applications submitted in the settlement procedure is intended to specify detailed criteria, scoring, minimum qualification, etc. when investors apply for concessions for further offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea. It was accepted that the all criteria will be up to 100 points and the minimum qualification in the whole decision-making procedure is 57 points.

It is assumed to double the number of points per criterion which will ensure that the area requested is most efficient.

The project shall specify detailed criteria depending on whether the waters under the planned farm are not or are covered by the zoning plan.

The degree of alignment of planned construction and operation dates with the interests of the national economy, including the implementation of the State's energy policy (PEP2040), will be assessed.

Requirements shall be laid down for guarantee institutions, as well as necessary guarantee elements and guarantee agreements.

The highest score is to be the ability to implement the project from the applicant's own resources, below — from loans or loans, at the lowest — from the public funds available, including Union grants. In order to document the credit capability of the planned project from loans or loans, the applicant should provide at least an up-to-date credit rating that will also be assessed.

The assessment is also intended to cover the applicant's experience in building offshore or land wind farms, building and operating a physical production unit within the meaning of the Capacity Market Act, and building electricity networks.

The contribution of planned projects to EU and national sectoral policies will be assessed. Specific criteria are the positive impact of the planned project on energy transformation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the qualitative contribution to the implementation of specific national sectoral policies and the qualitative contribution to the implementation of specific EU sectoral policies.

For offshore wind farms, as regards the criterion on the positive impact of the project on energy transformation and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, a scoring is provided according to the energy transition rate of the applicant or the capital group to which it belongs. The indicator will be calculated according to a special formula. This indicator was designed so that a higher score for companies that are in the initial phase of the energy transition ceases to take place with the progress of the energy transition of the entrepreneur concerned. This design avoids unfair transformation, which will exclude entrepreneurs currently at a lower stage of transformation due to systemic restrictions

The failure to apply this criterion could result in a strong concentration of RES manufacturing assets and consequently market monopolisation and price increases for consumers in the future, leading to a reduction of public acceptance for the energy transition process.

The objective of the energy transition rate is to create an opportunity to participate in the energy transition for companies that are in the initial phase of the energy transition. Although fossil fuels are currently reducing their share of the electricity generation structure, they continue to play an important role in the energy landscape of most EU countries and there are no shortages of operators with experience in this area. The criterion refers to all energy produced by an entity which does not come from RES, i.e. energy from gas sources.

Additional criteria will be experience in the implementation of energy storage projects, the efficiency of the use of the area.

Source: PAP