Experience, especially from countries where green energy is much more developed than in Poland, shows that the best results can be obtained from extended and complex RES projects. In the case of wind farms, for example, they can be combined with photovoltaic farms. An extremely interesting solution in this area was recently applied by the Spanish. Can they be transferred to Polish soil? It turns out that yes.
Wind farm and photovoltaic farm – the example of Spain
Recently, the well-known company EDP Renewables announced the connection of a hybrid wind-solar installation to the grid. A photovoltaic farm was added to a wind farm that has been in existence for many years, connecting both installations to a common connection point. This solution will generate more than 58 GWh of energy per year, enough to power up to 17,000 households located near the wind-solar farm.
There is no doubt that this is quite an achievement, greatly accelerating Spain’s energy transition. That’s why more projects of this type are already planned. Investors are simply positive about them, seeing huge benefits from combining wind and solar farms. Can such an effect also be achieved in Poland?
How to combine it in Poland?
The legal mechanism that allows in Poland to create extended and complementary to each other RES sources is cable pooling. In simple terms, it means the possibility to connect different sources of green energy to the same connection. The idea is that these sources should be complementary to each other, primarily in order to achieve the highest possible efficiency, so for example a wind farm and a solar farm. In practice, a combination of a wind farm and a biogas plant may also prove to be a good solution – especially if there are farms in the vicinity of the farm.
Available research on the Polish RES market clearly shows that the most profitable is the combination of wind and solar farms. Most often, in such an arrangement, the wind power plant is the primary source of power, supplemented – for example, during windless weather – by a solar power plant. However, the specific solutions worth using in this type of investment depend on the individual circumstances of a particular case.