Prime Minister, what will be the Polish energy strategy?

The lack of precision of the message causes that the market receives mixed signals about the development of energy. The Prime Minister should cut the speculation so that we go to the COP24 climate summit with a credible declaration of decarbonisation – writes Wojciech Jakóbik, editor-in-chief of BiznesAlert.pl.

In the project of Poland’s Energy Policy until 2040 (PEP 2040), there are provisions that the government does not provide support for onshore wind farms. Existing units are to make their lives, and new ones will not be created. The argument is that after this time they will develop on market terms due to the fall in prices of this technology envisaged by the government. A government plenipotentiary for strategic energy infrastructure talked about this in the past, but when the energy strategy was published, there was no translation on the subject, which led to a speculation on the long-term ban on wind farms on Polish soil.

PEP 2040 also includes a bold plan to build a nuclear power plant by 2033. It would have a power of 1-1,5 GW. Ultimately, it would generate as much as 6-9 GW of nuclear power. This is supposed to be Poland’s recipe for decarbonisation without the need to secure zero-emission power with conventional energy, which is so far indispensable in the case of Renewable Energy Sources (RES). Germany can be an example, where along with the development of RES, carbon dioxide emission increase instead of reducing. The Ministry of energy announced, however, that it has not yet prepared the nuclear financial model. Unofficially, you can hear that the idea is that the finished model is waiting for the Prime Minister’s green light.

There is a temptation to leave information chaos around the energy strategy. The record on the share of coal in the amount of 60 percent and RES – 21 percent by 2030 gives peace in Silesia on the eve of the climate summit in Katowice. A similar effect may be caused by the delayed construction of a nuclear power plant and the lack of support for onshore wind farms as two solutions competing for coal power industry. All speculations on this subject should be dispelled by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland. He will decide on the final shape of the energy strategy after the public consultation on it. They will last until January 15, 2019. Will there be a strategy review after this date?

If disputes over the Polish energy mix are not resolved before COP24, we will go to the climate summit without a credible declaration of decarbonisation of the Polish energy sector. In this way, we can undermine the position of the Polish presidency as the host country from which the participants of the talks should take an example. The Ministry of Energy, in consultation with the Government Plenipotentiary for strategic energy infrastructure and the chair of COP24, prepared the project and is waiting for a decision. One instance by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland is enough to decide whether and in what shape the energy strategy will be adopted. We’ve been waiting long enough.