Without its coal-fired power plants, Poland will face blackouts or dependence on imported electricity, warns the head of the Silesia-Dąbrowa region of Solidarity. His warning comes after PGE GiEK decided to keep the Rybnik power plant’s coal units running beyond their original shutdown date.
PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna announced on 27 July that the Rybnik plant would continue producing power and heat for longer than planned. The management and supervisory board chose to phase out the units gradually instead of switching them off on 1 July 2027, as the previous schedule required.
Under the updated timetable, unit 5 will be taken offline in the second half of 2026, unit 8 in 2027, and units 6 and 7 will keep operating through the first half of 2028. Coal-based heat production at the site is now expected to last until the end of the first quarter of 2029.
Union: extension is a start, but the social contract demands more
Dominik Kolorz, chairman of the Silesia-Dąbrowa region of Solidarity, called the decision positive but insufficient. He referred to the social contract signed in May 2021 by government representatives and the mining community, which said the Rybnik plant would run on hard coal at least until 2030.
– This is a first step in the right direction and I hope not the last. The facts are that without coal power plants we will face either blackouts or dependence on energy imports from abroad – he said.
The 2021 document also included a plan to review in 2029 whether the coal units could work longer. Kolorz argued that keeping them alive is not solely a contractual issue.
– Maximising the extension of coal unit operations is a necessity not only because of the social contract, but above all because of the needs of the Polish energy system – he said.
Capacity gap and the cost of switching to gas
Kolorz reminded that a year ago his union warned against closing coal plants in the name of green ideology, saying the grid could lose 12-13 GW of capacity within a few years. He noted that Polskie Sieci Energetyczne, the Polish transmission system operator, has confirmed those projections.
– To avoid blackouts, we have a choice: either reconcile ourselves with Polish coal or become dependent on a gigantic import of energy from abroad – he added.
Kolorz argued that the time for rational reflection on coal is running out. In his view, Poland is replacing domestic coal with imported gas, and tens of billions of zlotys are being poured into new gas-fired units even though gas is a fossil fuel that emits CO2 and must be bought abroad.
– The situation in the Middle East shows that this is playing with fire. Instead of building energy independence, we are going in the opposite direction. We are increasing our dependence both on imports of energy raw materials and on electricity – Kolorz concluded.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. K-FK / Shutterstock
