Poland is stepping up efforts to build competencies for its emerging nuclear energy sector, which officials say could become a significant branch of the national economy with preparations progressing for the country’s first nuclear power station.

A spokesperson for Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ), the company in charge of the project, told NucNet that the investment in a new nuclear power station will create new platforms for international contacts for Polish companies, offices, universities and scientific institutions.

Poland plans to build three Westinghouse AP1000 pressurised water reactor units at Lubiatowo-Kopalino, in Pomerania province in the north of the country. The project marks the revival of Poland’s ambitions for nuclear power more than three decades after the earlier Zarnowiec project, also in Pomerania, was abandoned in the late 1980s following the Chernobyl accident and political changes in the country.