(Bloomberg) -- Poland ordered record cuts for generation of renewable energy on Sunday due to electricity oversupply, highlighting growing challenges the nation’s grid faces from the wider use of green power.

Sunny and windy weather increased production from solar panels and wind turbines amid reduced weekend demand, triggering the need to balance the country’s power system, state grid operator Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne SA said on its website. It prompted the company once again to use special rules related to energy security threats.

While in previous weekends PSE limited mostly production from photovoltaic farms, this time it also halted production from wind farms with capacity of near 1.9 gigawatts. Together with solar generation, installations totaling 4.5 gigawatts became temporarily idle despite positive weather conditions. The oversupply also pushed the price of electricity at balancing the market to negative levels.

Poland, historically dependent on coal-fired power, is struggling with the switch to intermittent renewable sources, with connections for new projects often refused due to grid constraints. The boom in household and commercial-size solar panels has boosted the capacity of photovoltaic installations to almost 18 gigawatts, while that for wind farms amounts to 10.1 gigawatts.  

On Sunday, renewable sources fulfilled more than half of demand for 17.7 gigawatts. Despite oversupply, some of coal plants need to stay operating to provide electricity during the night. Renewable developers are allowed some compensation from the grid for forced pause in production.

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