Warsaw planning update 2020 energy programme to ‘strengthen position of nuclear’
There is no alternative to deploying nuclear power for Poland’s future energy mix and to help secure baseload generation against intermittent renewables, Milosz Motyka undersecretary of state in the ministry of climate and the environment, told a panel discussion on Monday 18 March.
“If not nuclear, then what? Not coal, there is no alternative,” Motyka told the Baltic Nuclear Energy Forum in the city of Gdansk, about 100 km southeast of Poland’s proposed first nuclear station at Lubiatowo-Kopalino on the Baltic coast.
The cost of basing the Polish economy on coal-fired generation will be increasingly higher in the coming years and “it’s not worth it” for the economy and the environment, he said.
Asked about renewable energy sources, Motyka said nuclear will secure the baseload of power generation and the stability of the energy system against the intermittent nature of wind and solar.
“There is no alternative to the stability of the system like nuclear energy,” Motyka said.
He said the government wants to update a 2020 nuclear energy programme by the end of this year – an update that will “strengthen the position of nuclear”, according to Motyka. The update is also expected to include progress on small modular reactors, according to earlier reports.
In November 2022, Warsaw chose Westinghouse to supply its AP1000 pressurised water reactor technology for the country’s first nuclear power station, a three-unit facility at Lubiatowo-Kopalino in Pomerania, northern Poland.
In late 2023, Westinghouse formed a consortium with US partner Bechtel for the project. Geological studies at the new-build site are set to start this spring.
Financing Remains A Question
Financing, however, remains uncertain, with the government yet to make public a final decision.
Government officials recently said Warsaw is looking at a contracts for difference (CfD) scheme. Earlier options included attracting equity from a co-investor or debt financing.
According to Bogdan Pilch, director of the Polish Chamber of Power Industry and Environmental Protection, equity financing may be a “wrong” option because it is “always the most expensive method” of financing.
Pilch added that another related issue may be the loss of full control over the project, which better remain under the ownership of a single Polish company. Currently, this is project company Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe, owned by the Polish state.
Robert Rudich, energy attaché at the US embassy in Warsaw, said the decision on financing rests with the Polish government.
He said: “A lot of the concepts that were developed to try and bring some degree of US equity as opposed to subsidised debt financing are probably not the most economical way to finance this project.
“I don’t want to give the impression that we are backtracking on anything, because everything that we have put on the table is absolutely on the table,” Rudich said.
He said the US Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank) has sent a letter of interest for “a very large number of billions of dollars” to support Poland’s first nuclear project. “That is probably the lowest-cost debt financing available and it is an immensely powerful tool that we are bringing to this strategic project.”
In 2020, Warsaw signed in 2020 an agreement with the Exim Bank to finance projects supporting climate change in Poland, including potential new reactors. Models of financing by the Exim Bank, the US Development Financial Corporation, and equity capital by Westinghouse and Bechtel formed part of an offer for the first nuclear station presented to Poland by the US ambassador in September 2022.
Poland wants to have between 6 GW and 9 GW of commercial nuclear power at up to two sites in the early 2040s under its current nuclear power programme adopted in 2020.
