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According to data published by Forum Energii, the share of renewables in energy generation broke records a few times in 2023. Combined with PV generation, biomass and hydropower (0.2 TWh each), renewables accounted for 25.3 percent of the generation mix in December. This is 9.4 percentage points more than in the same month of 2022.
Forum Energii has reported that the last month of last year also brought the highest recorded demand for electricity this year, which reached 15.2 TWh. There were also records in the production of electricity from natural gas (1.4 TWh) and oil (0.3 TWh).
At the same time, production from onshore wind farms amounted to 3.1 TWh in December (the previous record was 2.6 TWh in February 2022), which met 21.3 percent of electricity demand.
Experts from Forum Energii have pointed out that while bituminous coal and lignite remained the main source of electricity, the share of natural gas and RES continues to grow.
An analysis of the end of 2023 also reveals that Poland exported a, all things considered, high amount of power abroad – 0.2 TWh. This is the result of high winds and high production from wind turbines of up to 8.4 GWh/h over the Christmas period (December 25-27), with traditionally lower energy demand at the same time. In order to maintain the stability of Poland’s inflexible power system, it was necessary to export electricity and use pumped storage power plants to store the surplus.
Forum Energii has also pointed out that despite the beginning of winter and an increase in fuel consumption – both for heating purposes and for electricity production – December was another month in which coal and gas prices had dropped. The price of gas fell by 3.7 percent compared to November (to PLN 320/MWh) and remains at a lower level than in 2022 (-32.1 percent year-on-year). However, it is still more than 250 percent higher than in December 2019 (91.5 PLN/MWh). Coal prices for power plants (PSCMI1 index) fell by 3 percent (month-on-month to 31.0 PLN/GJ ) and are at their lowest level since December 2022. However, this is an increase of 20 percent over last year. In the case of coal for heating plants (PSCMI2), prices fell by as much as 14.4 percent (month to month) to the level of PLN 26.4/GJ (or 37 percent year to year) and reached the lowest value since July last year.
Source: Forum Energii
