Poland’s grid operator, Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne S.A. (PSE), announced on Twitter on Monday that the country had reached 1.3 GW of cumulative installed PV capacity by the end of 2019.
In the message, written in Polish, PSE said that the country’s total installed PV capacity had reached 1299.6 MW by the end of December, up 175.7% year on year.
By the end of September, the country’s cumulative solar capacity still stood at just 1,007.2 MW, according to PSE. That means that around 293 MW were deployed in Poland in the fourth quarter alone. That exceeds the outlook of the government, which said at the time that it expected around 60 MW of new capacity per month throughout the remainder of 2019, to bring Poland’s cumulative capacity to roughly 1.2 GW by the end of December.
At the end of 2018, Poland’s operational PV capacity stood at roughly 486 MW, with just 214 MW deployed that year.
Last year’s strong growth was mainly driven by rising incentives for rooftop PV and an extension of net metering access for businesses and energy communities. The Polish government is also supporting commercial and industrial PV, as well as large-scale solar through renewable energy auctions.
