Green certificates market in Poland - The sources of crisis

Accession of Poland to the European Union led to a number of significant changes in the Polish energy sector through introduction of market mechanisms, creating competitiveness and enforcing improvement of an economic efficiency of the whole industry, including energy production from renewable energy sources. As a support system for renewable electric energy sources Poland implemented a system of Tradable Green Certificates. The mechanisms functioned properly for many years and were the source of a reasonable income for investors. In 2012 there was the first serious crisis in the renewable energy industry: certificate prices began to fall sharply and revenues of producers decreased drastically, calling into question profitability of many projects. Presented paper is an attempt to analyze this situation. The analysis covers the most important factors that led to this situation, taking into account the current legal situation and the current structure of the renewable energy sector in Poland.