Date: Tuesday, 6 June 2023
Polish Green Network presented the documentary titled ‘The New Energy’. People depicted in the documentary are planning or operating energy communities. They face many bureaucratic and legal obstacles while seeking financial aid for their investments. Will the Polish recovery plan help them? Does the government’s plan sufficiently address the needs of emerging energy communities in Poland?
‘My definition of an energy cooperative is straightforward. What you produce, you can share with others, benefiting both of us’, says one person in the documentary. It’s hard not to agree with them because energy communities are about cheap energy production and sharing and building a community. A community that anyone can be a part of! Will we have enough of the eponymous ‘New Energy’ to create such communities?
After the screening, we invited participants to a debate with experts and decision-makers. We invited representatives from the Ministry of Climate and Environment, the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy, experts from Polish NGOs, and the European network dealing with energy – CEE Bankwatch Network.
Discussion questions:
- What role does the government foresee for energy cooperatives in Poland’s future energy mix?
- At what stage is the implementation of the recovery plan investmentB2.2.2 – support for energy communities?
- What changes are in preparation within the REPowerEU process?
- How do experts assess the government’s plans?
- What needs to change in the legal framework? What are the financing mechanisms for energy cooperatives, and do they meet the needs of Polish citizens?
- What is the other countries’ experience with supporting the energy communities with recovery funding?
The webinar brought together mostly people who already knew about the existence of energy cooperatives, but very little about them. We received a lot of congratulations on our film for the way we showed the situation of these cooperatives in Poland in a comprehensive way in several minutes. Thanks to the presence of representatives from three ministries, the audience also learned what the plans are for changes in regulation, management and possible funding for cooperatives. Very importantly, information was also given on the possibility to participate in public consultations and planned competitions for the EU funding. We had 61 people present at the webinar live. They were located in 7 different EU countries, which is a very nice achievement, given that the event was dedicated to the Polish context. This is due to the fact that our film on this topic has attracted a lot of interest and that developers of energy cooperatives in different European countries want to benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience.
