Poland Announces Closing of Largest European Coal Power Plant

The Polish Energy Group (PGE), the state energy company and the biggest electricity producer in Poland, has announced the deadlines within which it plans to shut down the coal-based Thermal Power Plant Belchatow, the biggest power plant complex in Europe.

According to the data of the Polish Ministry of Treasury, certain blocks of the thermal power plant, whose construction began in 1981, should be shut down in phases between 2030 and 2036.

PGE also announced that it would gradually stop the exploitation of lignite at the nearby mines in Belchatow and Szczercow. The process will also be carried out in phases and should be completed by 2026 and 2038 respectively.

The TPP Belchatow is located around ten kilometers from the eponymous city, in central Poland, south of Lodz. The mining-energy complex Belchatow, also the biggest lignite-based TPP in the world, has 13 blocks of a total power of 5,420 MW.

The power plant spends around 45 million tons of coal annually, which makes it the biggest individual emitter of carbon-dioxide in Europe.

The management of PGE says in the press release that they are aware of the social and economic consequences of the decision to close the thermal power plant, but that it has trust in “plans for a just transition” and that it expects financial support of the EU for abandoning coal as an energy source and for the retraining of workers.

The European Union has established the Just Transition Fund (JTF), with EUR 17.5 billion, which is supposed to help the countries and the regions of the Union switch from fossil fuels to a green economy.

The Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal and European Commissioner for Climate Action, Frans Timmermans, warned earlier that the transition toward an ecologically acceptable economy “needs to be just, or it won’t happen at all, because people will not accept it”.

Poland, however, has not so far obliged to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 in line with the EU goals, so there’s a possibility that it will only get a part of the money that it would otherwise get from the JTF.

Furthermore, the Polish government agreed with the trade unions to abandon coal exploitation as late as 2049, although the OECD countries obliged by the Paris Agreement to do so by 2030 at the latest.

Polish Energy Group

PGE

Frans Timmermans

Belchatow

coal based thermal power plant

closing of thermal power plant

fossil fuels