**1. Introduction**

Consequent to population growth and economic development, the demand for energy is constantly growing—the International Energy Agency predicts that the demand for electricity will increase by 30% in 2040, compared with the base year 2016 [1,2]. Unfortunately, attempts to create better living conditions for society involve serious problems related to fossil fuel combustion and its negative environmental impact: climate changes, acid rains, eutrophication, emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), mercury and other pollutants, etc. [3,4]. Thus, there is also growing public awareness of the urgent need to solve these most pressing environmental problems related to energy production. The consequences of these changes caused the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 ◦C, compared with the pre-industrial era, in order to reduce the risk and damage caused by climate changes [5]. Considering this, the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources seems to be a good and future-proof solution. At the same time, public policy has largely favoured wind and solar technologies for energy production among other technologies using renewable sources (RESs), which contributed to the growth of installations powered by these sources [6–8]. More importantly, many premises indicate that

**Citation:** Olczak, P.; Zelazna, A.; ˙ Matuszewska, D.; Olek, M. The "My Electricity" Program as One of the Ways to Reduce CO2 Emissions in Poland. *Energies* **2021**, *14*, 7679. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14227679

Academic Editor: Dzintra Atstaja

Received: 30 September 2021 Accepted: 8 November 2021 Published: 16 November 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

such a climate policy will determine future directions for actions [9–11], where solar energy technologies will have leading importance [12,13]. On the example of the European Union itself, it can be seen how the electricity generation capacity has changed from 1.9 GW to over 133 GW in 2010–2019. The year 2019 alone brought 16.5 GW of new installed capacity in the EU [14]. As a result, the power installed in photovoltaics both in the EU and United Kingdom could generate 5.2% of the final electricity demand (about 150 TWh) at the end of 2019 [15]. The efficiency of photovoltaic systems depends on several factors, including photovoltaic technology and its structure and components used, partial shading, losses related to soiling of the panels, as well as individual environmental factors for different latitudes such as the insolation, temperature, angular losses, etc. [16–18]. Poland, as one of the EU Member States, faces an urgent need to develop new solutions for the energy sector that would be appropriate in terms of environment, technology, and economy [19,20]. This is even more important in the context of the fact that the Polish energy mix is largely based on the use of fossil fuels (mainly coal) as an energy source—in 2020, in Poland, 70.18 TWh was generated from hard coal, while 34.42 TWh was generated from lignite, with total energy generation at the level of 140.56 TWh, which was 49.93% and 34.42%, respectively [21,22]. Data shows that in 2018 in Poland, greenhouse gas emissions were 415.9 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq) [23]. The high and constantly growing prices of CO2 emission rights make coal power plants less and less profitable in operation [24,25]. The prices of CO2 emissions over the last few years are presented in Figure 1.

**Figure 1.** Prices of CO2 emission allowances in 2014–2021. Authors' study based on [26].

Analysing the current situation on the photovoltaic market in European countries with a temperate climate, Poland, immediately after Germany and The Netherlands, has the largest PV market [27]. With an estimated annual insolation value of 1000 kWh/m<sup>2</sup> [28,29], the Polish photovoltaic sector is the fastest-developed renewable energy sector—with a total capacity of micro-installations of 4075.5 MW (data as of 31 June 2021). Comparing this with the total installed capacity as of 30 June 2017, it indicates almost a 25-fold increase in less than 4 years (Figure 2) [30]. As a result, Poland ranks fifth in terms of creating new PV installation capacities, closely behind Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, and France. Forecasts show that PV installations will continue to be popular in the future, and installed capacity may, with conservative estimates, increase by around 5–7 GWp by 2030 [31] and by around 10–16 GWp by 2040 [32,33].

**Figure 2.** Number of PV installations and installed power capacity of PV installation in Poland. Authors' study based on [30].

The development of photovoltaics both in Poland and the entire EU was possible to a large extent through programs aimed at encouraging investors to invest in solar technologies [6,7]. At the same time, designing a renewable energy policy through various types of support programs, tax breaks, subsidies, is extremely important from the point of view of efficiency, environmental friendliness, as well as social equity [34]. The price effect pushes producers with high marginal costs from the market (which may be influenced by the high costs of carbon certificates in the case of conventional power plants) and a decrease in the wholesale energy price. On the other hand, consumers bear to a large extent hidden costs related to the development of RES since these subsidies are refinanced from taxes. As a result, the allocation of aid funds in RES is extremely important, and it is worth examining whether the mechanisms governing it are not defective, and there are no problems with the appropriate allocation of funds [7,35]. Olczak et al. [36] analysed the allocation of funds for photovoltaic micro-installations in Poland in terms of inequality between voivodeships in terms of their use. In the context of switching from conventional fossil technologies to generation using renewable sources, much is said about reducing GHG emissions during their operation [37]. However, when comparing the difference in GHG emissions between systems using fossil fuels and renewable sources, their operation time should be considered, as well as the entire life cycle, by conducting an appropriate life cycle analysis (LCA) for each of the compared systems [38]. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-known method used to assess the environmental impact of a product or process throughout its entire life cycle (from its manufacture, through operation, to disposal) [39], and consists of four main parts: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation [40].

There are numerous studies on PV LCAs in the literature [41–45]. Bracquene et al. [41] discussed how the eco-design of PV can contribute to reducing the environmental impact of photovoltaic panels. Müller et al. [42] conducted an LCA analysis of photovoltaic (PV) systems from sc-Si glass–backsheet and glass–glass modules produced in China, Germany, and the European Union (EU), considering current inventory data. Celik et al. [43] analysed two different structures of perovskite photovoltaic cells using the LCA with cradle-to-grave approach. Bogacka et al. [44] conducted a scenario analysis based on the LCA of the environmental impact of PV recycling. Ansanelli et al. [45] carried out an LCA to assess the environmental performance of a new process for recycling crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar panels at the end of life and to improve the circular economy of recovered materials.

Despite such extensive research linking LCA with PV, in the context of subsidy programs, it seems important to check whether the replacement of fossil fuels by PV will help

to avoid emissions (if so, to what extent) in the next 30 years. The novelty of this study is the estimation of the effectiveness of a subsidy program for PV installations, taking into account the LCA analysis—the conclusions obtained as a result of this study may influence the actions of decision makers and support the design of such programs. The authors infer a significant gap as regards checking how the replacement of dirty energy sources by PV in an energy mix such as Poland will affect this transition and avoid emissions.

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 focuses on presenting the characteristics of the results of the subsidiary program "My Electricity", whose purpose was to partially refinance PV micro-installation in households in Poland. Data as of 14 July 2021 includes over 90% of installations covered by the program as part of the two editions which were carried out in 2019–2020. In Section 3, research methodology is presented, including equations for PV electricity production, the subsidy amount for produced energy, and avoided CO2eq emission. In Section 4, an analysis of the subsidy program is conducted to evaluate the "My Electricity" program as one of the methods of reducing CO2eq emissions in Poland. This was achieved by determining the electricity produced in the first year and over 30 years and the cost of co-financing PV installations for electricity production per 1 MWh. LCA model calculations according to the IPCC GWP 100a method were used to estimate emissions for monocrystalline and polycrystalline PV systems. The unit GWP indicators obtained for hard coal, lignite, natural gas, and the Polish energy mix were used to determine the avoided emissions. Finally, Section 5 concludes the environmental impact of implementing the "My Electricity" program to avoid emissions in Poland over a 30-year perspective.
