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On 15 April 2026, the Act amending the Energy Law, which introduces significant changes to the regulatory framework for grid connection, was officially announced (the "Amendment"). The aim of the act is to provide a long-overdue response to the speculative blocking of connection capacity. The reform is ambitious and necessary, although certain mechanisms will require careful navigation by investors.
Under the Amendment, developers must navigate a three-tier financial gateway before the grid operator processes their file. Two of them are completely new to the market:
The advance payment has been doubled from PLN 30 to PLN 60/kW, with the cap rising from PLN 3m to PLN 6m.
Critically, under the previous system, this requirement applied only to generation and BESS units. Now, the obligation to make advance payments extends to all entities connecting above 1 kV, including demand-side consumers such as data centres and industrial plants.
The application fee is a new, non-refundable charge of PLN 1/kW, capped at PLN 100,000. For a 60 MW solar farm, that is PLN 60,000 gone the moment the application is filed. The cost deters speculative filings while funding more efficient application processing.
The performance security is entirely new. For a 60 MW solar farm, it amounts to PLN 1.8m (PLN 30/kW for capacity not exceeding 100 MW), due within 14 days of signing the connection agreement.
The security may take the form of a cash deposit, bank or insurance guarantee, or parent company surety. A sliding scale of forfeiture applies: 10 % if the developer withdraws within six months, rising to 100 % after 36 months.
The regulatory message is clear: financial commitment should reflect genuine project intent.
The Amendment introduces firm deadlines tied to building permits. Once a connection agreement is signed for an installation above 1 kV, the developer must demonstrate project progress or the agreement expires automatically, by operation of law.
The deadlines differ by technology. A solar developer must obtain a building permit covering at least 80 % of installed capacity within 24 months. A hyperscaler planning a 50 MW data centre must cover at least 50 % of planned capacity in the same window. For onshore wind, biogas and transformer stations, the deadline extends to 36 months.
The legislator has built in two safety nets. First, a formal extension: the developer may apply once for up to 24 additional months, but must provide additional security of PLN 60/kW, capped at PLN 12m. The operator must confirm within 30 days. Second, force majeure exceptions – natural disasters, armed conflicts, supply chain disruptions and administrative delays where due diligence was exercised – suspend the deadline for up to 24 months, subject to supporting documentation.
The automatic expiry mechanism signals the seriousness with which capacity hoarding is being treated. Some practitioners have suggested that a complementary termination-with-notice approach could reduce uncertainty for lenders in edge cases, and this may merit consideration in future iterations of the framework.
The Amendment halves the validity of connection conditions from two years to one year. Exceptions apply to railway infrastructure (two years), offshore wind and nuclear energy (ten years). Operators have also gained the prerogative to re-verify previously issued demand-side conditions when concluding the agreement and to refuse to proceed if technical or economic conditions have changed. For most developers, the window for converting conditions into a binding agreement is now significantly compressed, creating sequencing challenges where projects require environmental assessments, zoning confirmations and financing negotiations within 12 months.
The public debate focused almost entirely on renewable energy. Yet the Amendment's obligations extend with full force to demand-side connections – data centres, industrial facilities and large agricultural operations face the same application fees, advances, securities, milestones and re-verification risk as generators. This creates a level playing field and ensures efficient allocation of grid capacity. Prudent sponsors should build exit rights into pre-connection contracts, particularly EPC agreements, to account for the possibility of operator refusal despite issued conditions.
The Amendment requires operators serving at least 100,000 consumers to establish publicly accessible IT systems enabling electronic application submission, real-time status tracking and publication of available capacities, pending applications, and refusal reasons. These must be operational by 29 April 2028.
New flexible and configurable connection agreements – transposing Directive 2024/1711 – allow operators to offer connections with temporary or permanent restrictions on power injection or offtake, enabling installations to connect even where full capacity is not immediately available.
How financial institutions respond will be a key test of the reform's success. Under the new regime, a connection agreement could expire by operation of law if a planning authority delays a building permit, raising questions for lenders about the asset's stability. Any short-term financing cost adjustment should, however, be offset over time by a connection regime that allocates capacity to projects that are genuinely being built, reducing systemic gridlock risk.
The Amendment is the most significant overhaul of Poland's grid connection regime in over a decade. The European Commission's guidance on efficient grid connections, published in December 2025, cited the Polish reform as an example of good practice. Its core mechanisms – financial commitments reflecting genuine intent, milestones enforcing progress and transparency levelling the playing field – are well-calibrated to the problem they address. The Minister of Energy must present an evaluation of the Amendment's effects to the Council of Ministers by 30 June 2029.
For now, the practical advice is straightforward: begin the connection process earlier than previously necessary, factor in the new financial requirements from the outset, and ensure that contractual arrangements account for the possibility of delays or complications in securing the connection agreement.
Grzegorz
Filipowicz
Partner
poland