The Polish government is currently processing a project of the so-called distance bill, which ultimately breaks with the 10H/700m principle and sets the minimum distance of wind turbines from buildings at 500 m. These further legislative liberalisations are intended to stimulate the industry, accelerate the energy transformation, and bring benefits to local communities. The industry is also counting on improving and shortening planning and environmental procedures, which currently significant delays the investment time in onshore wind farms.
“We have been waiting for a wind turbine law for a good few years now and the changes proposed by the Ministry of Climate and Environment are the culmination of this expectation. Removing the 10H rule was a big step forward, but reducing the distance from 700 to 500 m and involving local communities in the whole process is another step in the right direction. We would expect this to happen sooner rather than later. As investors, we have been waiting for these changes for a long time and assume that we will still have to wait a few months,” said Dr. Paweł Ryglewicz, Director for Regulation at Sunly Polska.
The so-called 10H rule – i.e., the norm specifying the distance from buildings at which wind farms can be built – was introduced by law in 2016. According to the rule, the limit was ten times the height of the wind turbine, roughly 1.5–2.5 km. In practice, this regulation froze onshore wind turbine projects for several years and led to investors withdrawing from the Polish market, as it ruled out the possibility of building wind turbines in about 99.7% of the country’s territory, according to the Instrat Foundation.
In 2023, the law was partially liberalised – the placement of wind turbines was then allowed at a distance of 700 m from residential buildings, provided that it was included in the local spatial development plan. However, the Polish onshore industry, while working on the amendment, indicated that the 700 m minimum distance of wind turbines from buildings is an insufficient change that will not allow the full unlocking of this energy sector.
This opportunity is provided by the amendment to the Act on Investments in Wind Power Plants, which was published and sent for public consultation on 25 September. According to the justification for the project, 84% of the existing local spatial development plans where wind power plant investments are planned, make them virtually impossible to implement, as most wind turbines would be located 450–650 m from buildings. Therefore, the government project allows the placement of wind power plants 500 m from residential buildings. As emphasized by the Ministry, the proposed changes will result in increasing the permissible area for onshore wind investments by 44% (32.5 thousand km²), resulting in the possibility of building over 10 GW of new onshore wind turbines by 2030.
“We are on our blocks because we cannot start certain things until we have the law,” says Dr. Paweł Ryglewicz. “Until we see the details, until we have specific numbers and specific regulations, we cannot even do project finance. Only when we can assess all the risks, then we can start implementing our projects, but we are still waiting for this.”
According to the Instrat Foundation, after the introduction of another amendment to the distance bill, the area available for the construction of wind power plants will increase the most in percentage terms in Kujawsko-Pomorskie (by 173%), Świętokrzyskie, and Małopolskie provinces – i.e., where the availability of such land has been extremely low so far. In nominal terms, the most land will be unlocked in Mazowsze, Wielkopolska, and Lubelskie.
The change in regulations will also benefit local communities. Under the already adopted regulations on renewable energy sources, from 2 July 2025, the institution of a virtual prosumer will be introduced, which means in practice that the investor of a wind power plant will have to offer at least 10% of its installed capacity to the residents of the given municipality. This will allow them to participate in the benefits that such an investment brings. The new proposal extends this investor’s obligation also to power plants directly connected to the transmission network and residents of nearby municipalities. In accordance with the regulations, participating residents will not be responsible for managing the power plant or for its maintenance, they will only reap the benefits from participating in energy production. If the residents do not cover all the installed capacity available to them in the wind power plant, the commune will then be able to purchase energy produced in such a power plant in an amount corresponding to the height of the share not taken up by residents. This can provide significant economic benefits for local governments.
“In addition, in line with the Ministry’s plan, as an investor, we have to offer the municipality to buy cheaper electricity from our wind farm,” says the expert.
As he emphasizes, the long-awaited liberalization of regulations will help to accelerate the energy transformation.
“In Poland, there is a huge potential for the development of renewable energy sources, and we need them, as we would not like to wake up one day with a blackout,” says the Director for Regulation at Sunly Polska. “Over the past several decades, we have had conventional energy, but the world has changed significantly, and today wind energy is what drives us forward. An example could be the area of northern Poland, the distribution area of the Energa operator, which already sells over 50% of green energy. This direction is irreversible; we will not stop it. Everyone – both banks, production plants, and subcontractors of global corporations – already knows that they must focus on green energy. Importantly, it will also lower our costs, as green energy is currently the cheapest, and every additional megawatt reduces the amount of our bills. So this is something we should strive for.”
As he points out, one of the barriers to the development of the onshore sector in Poland is still the lengthy procedures that can last for years.
“Currently, environmental and planning procedures are taking place one after the other. If they were conducted simultaneously, it would shorten the entire process by at least two years. This is a lot, considering that we currently have about seven years. This is the basic change that seems the simplest and easiest to implement,” says Dr. Paweł Ryglewicz. “The bureaucratic mentality is also a barrier. We expect certain formalities, certain planning rules, conversations with the local community to be made easier for us, not more difficult. I think this is the greatest need at the moment: that we relearn to communicate with each other, both with the local community and with the local authorities, because – despite easing in the law – nothing will change if there is no will to apply it at the local, grassroots level.”
