In the next decade, heating in Poland will have to undergo a revolution. Obsolete infrastructure in heating plants and buildings is reaching the limit of its usefulness. Their exploitation is expensive, and as Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the energy crisis cut off Europe from raw materials from Russia, more and more money will have to be paid for the coal and gas for the sector. The shift towards low- and zero-emission solutions is inevitable, write analysts from Forum of Energy.
The authors of the material: Dr Sonia Buchholtz, Piotr Kleinschmidt and Julia Wiśniewska believe that energy efficiency and electrification and the development of technologies based on renewable energy sources (RES) in heating are becoming a priority.
In their opinion, the scale of the necessary investments is over PLN 52 billion a year, but also heating is a key sector in achieving energy independence, and at the same time climate neutrality.
With an ambitious approach, creating a good legal framework and safe conditions for running a business, the modernization of the heating sector may increase Polish GDP by over 2% annually for the next 30 years and create an average of up to 400,000 jobs per year in the modern sector.
The state must pursue a conscious industrial policy aimed at the heat sector in order to create a national specialty in this industry. The first step on this path is creating a stable demand on the internal market – i.e. implementing the Clean Heat program and modernizing this sector in Poland, supporting research and development, and supporting production companies. As many investments ahead as possible should be carried out by Polish companies or foreign companies that have located their production in Poland, emphasizes Dr Sonia Buchholtz from Forum of Energy, co-author of the analysis.
The president of Forum of Energy Dr Joanna Maćkowiak-Pandera, claims that Poland should stop treating the energy transformation as something imposed from outside, and start developing the potential of the industry on it. “Many companies are already benefiting from it, but let’s plan the transformation so that as much money as possible remains in Poland and creates jobs and competitive technologies there”, adds Dr Maćkowiak-Pandera.
Adrian Andrzejewski order