Commercial operation now planned for 2036, official tells reporters
Poland’s first commercial nuclear power plant is scheduled for commercial operation in 2036 with first concrete in 2028 under an expected update of the country’s nuclear power programme, undersecretary of state for strategic energy infrastructure Wojciech Wrochna told journalists 11 December.
The revised timeframe means a three-year delay to previous government plans for the plant to be operational in 2033.
In November 2022, Warsaw chose US-based Westinghouse to supply the its AP1000 pressurised water reactor technology for the construction of the three units near the villages of Lubiatowo and Kopalino, to the northwest of Gdansk on the Baltic coast in the province of Pomerania.
Wrochna said the second and third units will go online in 2037 and 2038.
Poland has been working on an update of its nuclear power programme last released in 2020. That programme contained plans for deploying between 6 GW and 9 GW of commercial nuclear power at up to two sites in the 2030s and early 2040s.
Wrochna was quoted by Poland’s state-owned PAP press agency as saying that the update of the programme is at “a final stage”.
Earlier reports said the government, which took over from its conservative predecessor in December 2023, had pledged to release the document by the end of 2024.
Under its 2020 plans, Poland expected the first nuclear power unit to begin commercial operation in 2033 with first concrete in 2026. Two other units would have come online in 2035 and 2037.
However, delays related to selecting a technology vendor, changes to nuclear law, and financing discussions appeared to have caused delays.
Earlier this year, the previous undersecretary of state for strategic energy infrastructure Maciej Bando acknowledged that first concrete was likely to be poured in 2028.
New Deadline ‘Optimistically Realistic’
Maciej Lipka, a nuclear energy expert at Warsaw-based consultancy Nuclear PL, told NucNet that the 2033 target, announced in 2020 as the in-service date for Poland’s first reactor, was “quite unrealistic from the outset and wishful in nature”. He said it did not take into account the real administrative burden associated with the permitting and approval processes, and project preparation.
The new deadlines are “optimistically realistic”, he said “and it seems we are witnessing a fresh start with the government genuinely taking care of this strategic project.”
In late 2023, Westinghouse and US-partner Bechtel jointly formed a consortium that will implement the project. Bechtel is carrying out geological studies at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site since May.
Poland has not chosen a second nuclear power station site, although several options in central Poland had been mentioned. A technology vendor has not been chosen either, but there is interest from Westinghouse, France’s EDF and South Korea’s Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.
According to Wrochna, the “selection of a partner” for a second nuclear power station “must happen” through a competitive process. A second site is to be selected in 2025.
Europe To Begin State Aid Procedure
He said Warsaw expects the European Commission to start a state aid approval procedure by the end of 2024 for the proposed financing plan for Poland’s first station.
Warsaw reportedly sent an official letter in September 2024 to the commission to kick off the state aid approval procedure required under the European Union’s rigid competition rules.
The government has unveiled plans to inject over €14bn ($15.5bn) in equity funding into state-owned Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe, the company charged with developing the first power station, between 2025 and 2030. External debt funding for the project – reported to be costing between €20bn and €35bn in total – will also be sought under the government’s plans.
In addition to equity and debt financing, the financing model foreseen by Warsaw includes a contract for difference scheme during the operational phase of the project with the government guaranteeing a minimum power purchase price, known as a “strike price”.
“The most time and effort consuming task now will be negotiating state aid with the European Commission, which, as it turns out, has not been done so far,” Lipka said.
