Poland has formally adopted an updated Polish Nuclear Power Programme, and the version published in Monitor Polski reshapes who controls the country’s second nuclear project. Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe becomes both coordinator and investor, while PGE’s role is narrowed and the Bełchatów area is now named as the government’s preferred site for the second plant.
The document reached the Monitor Polski several months after the government signalled it would publish and present a full draft, following approval by the Council of Ministers. Its authors say it draws heavily on the experience of the past six years of building the programme.
– The updated PPEJ is strongly based on the lessons learned from the last six years of programme implementation. These are conclusions from our experience to date – we can see clearly today that certain issues require a different approach, more precision or a clear assignment of responsibility for specific tasks – said Paweł Gajda, director of the Nuclear Energy Department at the Ministry of Energy.
Compared with the final June proposal, most edits are cosmetic, but two are substantial. The first concerns PGE, long listed as a potential beneficiary of the nuclear programme and the owner of the Bełchatów complex, now indicated as the preferred location for a second nuclear power plant. Until now Konin had been named as the second site.
PEJ takes the lead on the second plant
The June draft described Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe, which manages the first nuclear project, only as the project coordinator for EJ2, leaving room for interpretation. The adopted programme removes that ambiguity: PEJ will hold the leading position in the second project as well, and other entities will be pushed to the sidelines.
– The coordinator and investor of the project will be the company PEJ or its subsidiary. During the preparatory phase, the company will be responsible in particular for developing the project’s financing framework and for coordinating activities with other institutions. At this stage, the task of PGE Energia Jądrowa S.A. will be to carry out research and analyses on selected potential locations for PEJ and to prepare, together with potential suppliers, preliminary feasibility studies for the plant based on the technologies under consideration – the programme states.
The document also sets out a variant in which PEJ would take over PGE Energia Jądrowa, or its assets, from PGE.
More money for the regulator, less than first planned
Changes in the new programme extend beyond the second location and touch the financing of nuclear supervision. The sum granted to support the National Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) was reduced, lowering total nuclear spending for 2026–2038 from PLN 1.737 billion in the June version to PLN 1.435 billion. The PAA had been expected to receive around PLN 1.5 billion; the nuclear watchdog was ultimately allocated PLN 1.23 billion.
That is still more than the previously binding 2020 PPEJ provided. Roughly PLN 400 million had been earmarked for the PAA through 2033, while the new figure exceeds PLN 630 million. The decision follows experience from work on the first nuclear plant, where strengthening the regulator was judged necessary so it can handle projects and compete with the private sector for experts.
– From the point of view of project delivery, strengthening nuclear supervision and the additional funds going to the PAA are of key importance. Today we have a much better map of the Agency’s needs in this area, which will guarantee efficient licensing processes in the future. Securing this financing in the new document is a change of fundamental importance – said Paweł Gajda.
The adopted programme does not settle the question of small modular reactors. It concentrates exclusively on large-scale nuclear units, leaving SMRs to be regulated in a separate roadmap, which is expected to arrive soon. Strategic documents of this kind require periodic updates, and this one needed it in particular: since 2020 most of the programme’s assumptions have changed, and the document had to catch up with reality.
Źródło: WNP.pl, Fot. Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe
