16GW of BESS registered for upcoming Poland capacity market auction

A total of 165MW of BESS projects won awards in the auction, Hynfra founder and CEO Tomoho Umeda said. The largest winning projects were 21MW of capacity from a 50MW/100MWh project by Sweden-based developer OX2 and a 120MW/500MWh project from Colombus Energy.

For the upcoming one in December, 16GW of BESS got preliminary registration to the capacity market, the first step to participating in the auction, he added, of which 580MW is Hynfra’s, through its Hynfra Energy Storage arm.

“Not all will make it,” Umeda said, but Hynfra is “doing all it can” to put its 580MW in, and plans to submit 2GW for next year’s.

The Polish market is starting from a low base but looks set to pick up as renewable deployments increase and with it, opportunities for energy storage.

The grid is still 70-75% powered by coal which has skyrocketed in price since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to increased renewable energy targets and 50GW of renewable capacity targeted by 2030 (and 88GW by 2040). Most of this will be solar PV due to restrictive rules for onshore wind projects.

“Local municipalities are at the forefront of actual decarbonisation, not central Government. While coal is still pretty expensive local governments operating coal powered CHP’s are facing financial pressure. Renewables require spatial planning which is local governments exclusive domain,” Umeda said.

The local municipalities are also aware that industry will start to leave if it cannot source clean energy, as large companies will have to decarbonise their supply chains starting in 2028-30.

The current heavy reliance on coal means energy arbitrage is an attractive near-term revenue stream for BESS, as Umeda explained: “With this duck tail curve of renewables, we witness substantial imbalance in the energy market when solar/wind generation is not available and conventional assets need to step in. It usually means that late afternoon (evening) hours, when power demand peaks, the price on spot market skyrockets. This makes price arbitrage it’s also an interesting business in Poland for storage systems.”

He also said that integrating BESS with electromobility hubs to optimise their charging patterns could be another revenue stream as logistics will increasingly need to electrify their fleets because of EU taxonomy rules.

The energy storage pipeline figures for Poland should perhaps be taken with a note of caution: Umeda claimed some developers submit projects as battery storage in order to get a connection quicker, when in reality they intend to develop renewables.

The largest battery storage project in the country Energy-Storage.news aware of is a 200MW/820MWh BESS being developed by state-owned power company PGE Group which aims to have completed the project by 2030.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the inaugural Energy Storage Summit Central Eastern Europe on 26-27 September this year in Warsaw, Poland.

This event will bring together the region’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers all in one place, as the region readies itself for storage to take off. Visit the official site for more info.

Hynfra Energy Storage’s managing director Piotr Czembor will be speaking in the ‘Best Practice Developer Session’ Keynote Panel on Day 2.