PGE Dystrybucja, a PGE Group company, has obtained funding from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW) for the investment ‘Construction of three energy storage facilities: Warta, Jeziorsko and Cisna, in order to stabilise the operation of the grid’, informed Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE).

“The total cost of the investment is nearly PLN 88.5 million, and the amount of co-financing obtained is over PLN 43 million. The project is being implemented between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2026.

Three new energy storages with a total capacity of 7 MW and a capacity of 19 MWh will be built in areas particularly vulnerable to power outages and deterioration of grid quality parameters, in the Podkarpackie and Łódzkie provinces. Each of the three storages will ensure continuity of power supply for at least 2 hours in the event of an outage, giving time to rectify the fault and providing customers with greater certainty and stability of energy supply. The storages will also be used for grid balancing, which will positively affect the possibility of connecting new RES installations”, said PGE President Wojciech Dąbrowski.

The construction of the storage facilities in the Sanok and Sieradz Power Districts was dictated by the need to ensure secure electricity supplies to customers living in areas previously exposed to frequent power outages and deterioration of voltage parameters during a failure in the basic power supply line. In the event of an outage in each area, it will be possible to supply customers with stored energy until power is restored on the distribution networks or until the minimum level of storage discharge, after which there will be an automatic restoration to the normal system.

The PGE Group generates 41% of net electricity production in Poland and its share of the heat market is 18%. The Group estimates its share in the renewable energy market at 10%. PGE serves 5.5 million customers. Its market share in terms of volume of electricity distributed is 25% and sales to end users is 33%.

Adrian Andrzejewski