Public consultations on the draft amendment to the act on investments in wind farms have been ended.

The "anti-windmill" act may be liberalized soon. Currently, the draft act is being proceeded in the Senate [PL: Senat Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej]. The amendment’s main aim is to simplify the process of implementing new projects for the construction of onshore wind farms and to remove or amend certain regulations that constitute an obstacle to the development of this type of renewable energy source.

The Ministry of Economic Development, Labor and Technology [PL: Ministerstwo Rozwoju, Pracy i Technologii] has prepared a draft amendment to the act on investments in wind farms, the main assumption of which is to ease the existing strict rules forbidding placing windmills close to residential buildings and forms of nature conservation.

In the justification to the draft act, one can find information indicating that the main aim of the planned amendment is to introduce changes to the rules for locating investments regarding onshore wind farms in municipalities that express the will to locate such infrastructure, and to "unblock" the development of housing in the vicinity of these wind farms while maintaining the maximum safety of their operation and providing full information about the planned investment for the residents of the surrounding areas.

The current provisions of the act of 20 May 2016 on investments in wind farms (hereinafter referred to as the "Act") constitute, according to the so-called "10H rule" that onshore wind farms may be located from residential buildings and forms of nature conservation at a distance of not less than ten times the height of the windmill (Art. 4 of the Act). This provision often prevented or at least significantly hindered the implementation of new investments.

Admittedly, the draft amendment to the Act does not remove the "10H rule" from it, however, it is planned to supplement the legal act with provisions giving municipalities the right to decide on the designation of wind farm locations as part of the local planning procedure.

The local spatial development plan will help to determine a different (than resulting from the "10H rule") distance from the residential building, taking into account the range of the wind farm's impact. However, there is a proviso that after the introduction of the amendment, the minimum distance of new investments from onshore wind farms amounts to at least 500 meters.

After the introduction of the Act, new wind farms will still be established only on the basis of the local spatial development plan. However, the obligation to prepare the local spatial development plan or its change for the purposes of the investment in question will apply only to the area of ​​the projected impact of a wind farm, while the Act in its current wording imposes the obligation to prepare a local spatial development plan for the entire area designated  under the "10H rule", i.e. for the area that is located within the one defined by ten times the total height of the designed wind farm.

What is more, the project assumes that the impact assessment will have to be approved by the Regional Director for Environmental Protection [PL: Regionalny Dyrektor Ochrony Środowiska].

Pursuant to the amendment, if a wind farm already exists, municipalities will be entitled to grant building permits for residential buildings in the vicinity, with a minimum distance of 500 meters (or greater, resulting from the protection zones adopted by a given municipality in the local spatial development plan). The above will also apply to forms of nature conservation. The condition applied for municipalities to deviate from the "10H rule" shall be the necessity to conduct public consultations.

The amendment to the Act will have a real impact on the functioning of both entrepreneurs from the renewable energy sector, investors from the real estate sector and the operation of local governments.

Wind energy is currently considered  one of the cheapest sources of electricity in Poland. The Polish Wind Energy Association [PL: Polskie Stowarzyszenie Energetyki Wiatrowej] adopted a position that the demand for "emission-free", affordable electricity is systematically growing. Industrial plants that operate in Poland more and more often want to build their competitive advantage based on the energy derived from renewable energy sources which they buy directly from the producer. Moreover, they use the formulas of the Power Purchase Agreement.

The latest research by the Ministry of Climate and Environment [PL: Ministerstwo Klimatu i Środowiska] shows that the Polish present a positive attitude towards the development of wind energy in Poland. According to research conducted in November 2020, 85 percent of respondents support the development of onshore wind energy. There are, of course, local communities that do not agree to locate wind farms in the municipality. For this particular reason, in recent years there have been many conflicts in Poland between local government, residents and investors.

The amendment to the act is intended, on the one hand, to take into account the protection of people who do not agree to the location of windmills close to their place of residence, but on the other hand, also to provide an impulse for the further development of renewable energy sources - wind farms, and to enable many interested municipalities to create conditions for investments in renewable energy sources within their area of residence.