The government adopted a bill to facilitate investments in agricultural biogas plants.
The document aims to drive the development of the circular economy on farms and food processing plants.
The Government Information Centre (CIR) reported that the government adopted a draft law on the facilitation of the preparation and implementation of investments in agricultural biogas plants, which provides for facilitation of the investment process and facilitation of the use of local substrate.
Limits have been adopted on the total installed electricity capacity of a maximum of 3,5 MW, or on the combined thermal capacity not higher than 10.5 MW, or an annual efficiency of agricultural biogas production not exceeding 14 mcm, or an annual production capacity of biomethane from agricultural biogas not exceeding 8,4 million cubic metres.
The main solutions adopted in the project provide for making easier the investment process with regard to the procedure of issuing a decision on building conditions and the procedure for issuing a permit for constructing a biogas plant, as well as issuing connection conditions.
In addition, the document is intended to facilitate the use of the local potential of the substrate by indicating that the substrates specified in an executive regulation issued on the basis of the draft will not be treated as waste.
The draft also introduces facilitation of the use of the post-fermentation product by specifying that the raw material can be placed on the market as a post-fermentation product without having to obtain the permission of the minister responsible for agriculture, which in effect will allow producers to dispose of or manage it without having to obtain a specific administrative decision.
„In the opinion of the authors of the project, the development of agricultural biogas plants can give impetus to the development at the national and regional level of suppliers and sub-suppliers of services and components (the so-called local content) in the life cycle of the installation-both at the stage of investment and its operation,” reports ISBnews.
ISBnews / Jedrzej Stachura
Minister of Justice criticizes the social contract with miners
Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who heads the Sovereign Poland party, which is part of the ruling coalition, has challenged the provisions of the government social contract with miners.
„The social agreement, which assumes the gradual extinction of hard coal mining, has lost its relevance after Russia’s aggression in Ukraine,” Zbigniew Ziobro said in Katowice. It assumes the phase-out of mining by 2049 in exchange for privileges and favorable conditions for quitting work.
According to Minister Ziobro, the import of coal from outside Poland due to insufficient domestic production forced Poles to spend PLN 24 billion. „We overpaid many times because we implement the EU policy, and in fact the policy of Germany. We don’t support it, the Justice Ministry and Sovereign Poland don’t support it either,” he said.
Sovereign Poland is in favour of increasing investment in coal mining in Poland. Its critics argue that a better solution is to reduce the importance of coal in the energy sector through the development of nuclear and renewable energy enshrined in Poland’s energy policy until 2040.
Polish Press Agency / Wojciech Jakóbik