Socio-economic Factors Influencing the Development of Renewable Energy Production Sector in Poland

Abstract

Poland is not one of the leaders in the use of renewable energy sources (RES), and most energy is still produced using hard coal and lignite. Therefore, there are noteworthy emissions of air pollution (including ashes and greenhouse gases), and the Polish energy sector is characterized by a substantial degree of carbonization, which, as a result, threatens to expressively increase the costs of electricity production, leading to financial penalties imposed by the EU. The aim of this paper is to analyze socio-economic factors influencing the development of the RES sector in Poland. According to this aim, expert research was carried out, in which the factors influencing development potential of RES were assessed at two levels (level II – 5 factors, level III – 15 factors) according to the factor tree analysis. Based on the analysis of the level II factors, it can be concluded that the development of the RES sector in Poland will depend to a decisive extent on factors such as: EU decisions and Polish legislation affecting the development of the RES sector in Poland, prices and availability of conventional energy carriers. Other two factors – regional policy on ecology and ecological awareness in Poland – have so far little impact on the development of this sector in the state. The analysis of the level III factors shows that the greatest impact on the development of the RES sector in Poland is the influence of European lobbying of manufacturers of machinery and equipment for renewable energy production on EU law, the impact of Polish lobbying of conventional energy producers on Polish law in the production of renewable energy and the influence of European lobbying of renewable energy producers into EU law.