Investments in renewable energies Connecting Renewable Energy Sources to the Grid Following the Amendment to the Energy Law - How the New Regulations Are Intended to Unlock Grid Connection Capacity
Grid connection of renewable energy installations following the amendment to the Energy Law – how the new rules are intended to free up grid capacity.
Access to the electricity grid is currently one of the greatest constraints on the development of new renewable energy projects in Poland. Even a good location, secured land and advanced administrative decisions are not sufficient if the project cannot obtain the required grid connection capacity.
The scale of the problem is significant. According to data from the President of the Polish Energy Regulatory Office, in 2025 grid operators issued 4,897 refusals to connect installations to the electricity grid, concerning a total of approximately 107 GW of capacity. At the same time, some available capacity remained reserved for years for projects that did not progress to subsequent stages of development. Such investments are referred to as “zombie projects”.
The amendment to the Energy Law, which generally entered into force on 30 April 2026, is intended to limit this phenomenon. On the one hand, it raises the requirements imposed on investors; on the other, it introduces solutions allowing more flexible use of existing infrastructure.
Connection conditions should not be the first step
An application for connection conditions should not be submitted at a very early stage of project development. Before initiating the procedure, the investor should at least have secured title to the property, assessed the planning and environmental framework, and determined the technology and planned capacity of the installation.
The new rules increase the cost of entering the procedure itself. For a connection to a grid with a voltage above 1 kV, the investor must pay a fee of PLN 1 for each kW of connection capacity, capped at PLN 100,000. The fee is non-refundable. In addition, an advance payment towards the connection fee must be made in the amount of PLN 60/kW, capped at PLN 6 million.
For a 50 MW project, this means a non-refundable fee of PLN 50,000 and an advance payment of PLN 3 million already at the application stage. Submitting an application should therefore be an investment decision, not a way of preliminarily checking whether capacity can be reserved at a given location.
The first clock: one year to conclude the agreement
As a rule, new connection conditions are valid for 12 months from the date on which they are served. During this period, the investor should conclude a grid connection agreement. Connection conditions issued before 30 April 2026 retain the two-year validity period specified in them.
One year may be too short, particularly where the installation must be redesigned after the connection conditions are issued, its parameters must change, or technical and economic details must be agreed with the operator.
The connection procedure should therefore be coordinated with the planning, environmental and design processes. Obtaining connection conditions should not be the point at which work on the remaining elements of the investment only begins.
The second clock: the building permit
Concluding a grid connection agreement does not eliminate the risk of losing access to the grid. From that moment, another deadline begins to run.
For most renewable energy installations connected to a grid with a voltage above 1 kV, the investor generally has 24 months from the conclusion of the agreement to obtain a final building permit to the extent required by law. This applies, among other things, to photovoltaic installations and energy storage facilities. For onshore wind farms and installations using biogas, the deadline is 36 months. In the case of photovoltaic installations and wind farms, the rules generally refer to the possibility of implementing at least 80% of the capacity covered by the agreement.
Failure to meet the deadline results in the agreement expiring by operation of law. This mechanism is intended to limit the continued existence of “zombie projects” – the agreement itself will no longer be able to block capacity for many years for an investment that remains at an early stage.
The deadline may be extended once, by a maximum of 24 months, provided that the investor submits an application before the deadline expires and provides additional security. Reliance on special circumstances beyond the investor’s control should be treated as an exceptional solution rather than as part of the standard project schedule.
Financial security
Another instrument intended to limit the reservation of capacity by projects that are not being developed is the obligation to provide security for the performance of obligations arising under the agreement.
For connections to a grid with a voltage above 1 kV, the security amounts to PLN 30/kW for the first 100 MW and PLN 60/kW for capacity exceeding 100 MW, subject to a maximum of PLN 12 million. It should generally be provided within 14 days of concluding the agreement. Permitted forms include, among others, a cash deposit, a bank or insurance guarantee and, subject to statutory conditions, a guarantee issued by the parent company.
For a developer, this means that it is necessary to take into account not only the cost of constructing the connection, but also the need to tie up funds or use guarantee limits at an early stage of the project. This is also relevant when selling RTB projects. The value of the connection agreement should be assessed together with the remaining period for obtaining the building permit, the form of security and the consequences of any change of investor.
More information and flexible connection models
The amendment is intended to increase the transparency of information on available capacity, submitted applications, issued connection conditions and refusals. As a result, grid analysis should be carried out already at the site-selection stage, alongside the analysis of land, planning conditions and energy production potential.
The reform is not limited to stricter requirements. New agreement models are intended to allow earlier use of the grid, even where the grid requires expansion. Under a flexible connection agreement, an installation may start operating before the grid investment is completed, but it must accept temporary restrictions on electricity injection or offtake.
A configurable connection agreement may be used where a full connection will not be possible even after the grid has been expanded. Restrictions may depend on the time of day, grid operating parameters or the operation of other installations and may be permanent.
For an investor, such a solution may be preferable to a refusal, but it requires a detailed economic analysis. The restrictions must be translated into the generation profile, the number of curtailment hours, revenues, PPA assumptions and lenders’ requirements. The possibility of obtaining a connection does not necessarily mean that the project is bankable.
What does this mean for developers?
The connection process should be treated as an integral part of the investment schedule. In practice, it is advisable to:
1. start with a grid and site analysis;
2. secure the land and assess planning and environmental issues;
3. only then submit an application for connection conditions;
4. after receiving them, promptly assess the technical and economic feasibility of the project;
5. before concluding the agreement, confirm that the schedule for obtaining the building permit is realistic;
6. after concluding the agreement, monitor the administrative process and the operator’s works in parallel.
The new rules will not create new lines or transformers. They may, however, ensure that limited capacity is increasingly reserved for projects that are genuinely ready for implementation. From an investor’s perspective, this represents a fundamental change: grid connection capacity is no longer an asset that merely needs to be secured. It must also be demonstrated that the project is ready to use it.
