What goes in Poland on 7th of August.
Russian tanker stranded in the Baltic: an accident, a ghost fleet or a test?
A Russian tanker is stuck near the German island of Rügen. It was supposed to bring oil to India. It is not known whether it is part of the ghost fleet which comprises old units used by the Russians to evade Western sanctions. It may also be testing the West’s response to incidents involving critical infrastructure.
An engine failure forced tanker Yannis P., loaded with oil for India, to anchor north of Rügen. According to the authorities, it does not pose a threat at sea. However, just in case, the Bremen Fighter tug is stationed nearby.
It is not known whether this unit is part of the so-called ghost fleet, a group of tankers used by the Russians to evade Western sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine through insurance and services of Asian companies. The vessel, which previously served as part of the ghost fleet, was detained-also for technical reasons-in Belgium, as reported by BiznesAlert.pl.
However, it is worth adding that Western services practice a scenario where Russia uses a vessel at sea to block sea routes, for instance to cut off deliveries to LNG terminals and oil depots. Europe has a problem with a scourge of incidents involving container ships and boats that disrupt traffic at sea. In September 2022, a container ship rammed a Polish cutter, and in February 2023, a fire on a container ship with dangerous cargo caused it to drift off the coast of Latvia.
Maerkische Oderzeitung / Wojciech Jakóbik
The Chinese will fuel the Polish electric car and security concerns
Poland has a huge production base, because it is the world’s 2nd largest manufacturer of batteries for EV vehicles, which gave rise to the dream of creating a national brand of electric cars. The Chinese company Geely is expected to provide Poland with technological assistance, but we must not forget about security issues and huge costs.
In November 2022, Electro Mobility Poland (EMP) announced that the technology partner of Izera – a Polish brand of electric cars – will be China’s Geely. EMP’s partner is a real giant in the automotive industry, especially when it comes to low-carbon vehicles. It currently occupies 4th place in the world in terms of registration of e-cars. It is the owner or co-owner of such brands as: Lotus, Smart, Zeekr or Polestar. The cooperation with the global company is to guarantee the Polish brand high technological quality of the Izera cars.
Looking at the number of vehicles sold, China is currently the world’s largest player in the field of electromobility. Among the largest manufacturers of e-cars are two Chinese companies (BYD and Geely), one American (Tesla) and one German (Volkswagen).
„In China, everything is counted in millions. Cars, infrastructure, more and more of them are coming from month to month. This can be seen on the streets of Chinese cities, where green plates indicating e-cars and plug-in hybrids are increasingly common. This is the most convincing argument for looking for a partner to develop an electric vehicle business in Europe or in Poland,” says Maciej Mazur, Managing Director of the Polish Alternative Fuels Association,
„Together with its brands, Geely and ranks 4th when it comes to the registration of electric cars in the world. Therefore, it was very good that the Electro Mobility Poland project gained such a partner. This is definitely a game-changer and the most important information that has appeared in the history of this project,” he stressed.
Although the cooperation between EMP and Geely is promising, there are still a number of structural problems that have not yet been resolved.
The factory in Jaworzno, which is supposed to produce Polish electric cars, has not yet been built, and construction has not even begun. So far, as much as PLN 500 million has been pumped into the project, and there are still no results. It has been announced that the construction of the factory would start in 2024, and the first models would drop off the conveyor belt only a year later. However, to achieve this, the project will need an additional PLN 6 billion.
In addition, security issues are of concern to Polish experts. It should be mentioned that Geely was blacklisted by the Ukrainian National Agency for Preventing Corruption for doing business in Russia and has been described as a „sponsor of war”.
It is worth mentioning that brands from the Middle Kingdom have already taken over 40 percent of the Russian automotive market. As many as seven of the ten best-selling car models in Russia are from China. Beijing benefits greatly from Western sanctions, and filling the market gap in Russia could help Chinese companies further expand internationally.
Jacek Perzyński
First collective prosumer – green energy from an apartment complex
Individual prosumers can produce green energy in single-family homes. Collective prosumers can do the same in apartment complexes, residential communities and more. The first prosumer of this kind is already online thanks to the National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ).
„At the beginning of July this year, the first collective prosument in Poland began to operate. This was made possible thanks to cooperation in which the Interdisciplinary Department of Energy Analysis (IDEA), which is part of the National Center for Nuclear Research, took part,” NCBJ said in a statement.
„Thanks to the definition of a collective prosumer proposed by the Ministry of Development and Technology in April 2022, tenants of multi-storey buildings can produce electricity from a joint installation and settle income between many residents. The definition opens up new opportunities for 500 thousand existing multi-storey buildings in the country, which means a revolution on the Polish market and a new stage of RES development, this time in urban space. The creation of the country’s first collective prosumer was the result of collaboration between IDEA/NCBJ, an employee company Enercode LLC, which is part of IDEA, as well as the Ministry of Development and Technology and PEB and IB Company. The installation, which has been in operation for a month, was installed on a residential building in Ryki, Lubelskie Voivodship,” the press release continued.
„The development of PV in recent years has focused on single-family homes. Due to the challenges associated with the transmission of additional energy in distribution networks, there is a need for new solutions. The answer to the needs, and at the same time to reducing network loads, is the institution of a collective prosumer for residents of multi-family apartment complexes. It consists of a photovoltaic system connected to the grid in the building and installed practically non-invasively on the roof, as well as a simple billing system. This combination maximizes energy savings through auto-consumption of energy,” the statement explained.
National Centre For Nuclear Research / Wojciech Jakóbik