Review of Regional Renewable Energy Investment Projects: The Example of EU Cohesion Funds Dispersal

The study aimed at reviewing the European Union funds’ distribution mechanism supporting investments in renewable energy deployment in Poland, its effects and the relationship between the value of each investment and its location, location area characteristics, the type of investing entity, and the type of RE to be utilized once the investment is completed. The study fills a gap in the literature on the regional dispersal of cohesion funds. The presented findings are novel and contribute to a better understanding of the use of funds to support local investment projects and improve planning and implementation of evidence-based policies aimed at increasing renewable energy utilization in the European Union. The applied methods included multiple linear regression and cartograms. The data on the renewable energy investments were obtained from the SIMIK database for the years 2007–2015, while the characteristics of counties were gathered from Statistics Poland. The results show that the European Union cohesion funding was essential in overcoming the major barrier to solar renewable energy utilization, which was the cost of the initial investment. There were significant differences in the dispersal of the analyzed investments–most of them cumulated in north-eastern and eastern Poland. Although the funding distributed through operational programs was accessed by a variety of applicants, the municipality self-governments and small and medium-sized enterprise contributed most to the increased share of energy generated from solar renewable energy. The largest number of projects involved solar and wind energy, allowing applicants to lower operating costs by reducing energy bills.