According to PGE vice-president for operations Ryszard Wasiłek, two gas-fired units of 700 MW each at the Dolna Odra Power Plant will start up at the end of this year or in the spring of 2024. He added that the company is trying on a new strategy, and on Thursday will sign a contract for an 800 MW unit at the Rybnik power plant.
On Monday, during the EEC congress in Warsaw, the vice-president also reiterated that the National Energy Security Agency, NABE, would be created by the end of March.
NABE will be established on the basis of the company PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna. The coal-fired generation assets of state-controlled energy companies – PGE, Enea, Tauron and Energa from the Orlen Group – will be transferred to NABE. They will include both hard coal and lignite power plants and lignite mines. It is expected to allow those companies to gain new investment opportunities for other types of energy sources.
“The PGE Group will look different after the separation of the coal assets into NABE, as we will be left with only thermal power plants that still operate using coal. We are already implementing a programme related to the decarbonisation of these CHPs and we have a programme to completely move away from coal in CHPs”, Wasiłek said.
Regarding offshore wind power, PGE’s strategy includes 6,500 MW. PGE already has three locations for offshore wind farms, or so-called offshore islands. Two islands are being developed with a Danish partner for about 2.5 GW. The third with a capacity of approximately 900 MW will be realised by the company itself. In recent days, the Group has received decisions on the location of another two islands of approximately 1 GW each.
PGE’s vice-president stressed that the company is continuing to invest in gas-fired power generation and is realising two units of 700 MW each in the Dolna Odra Plant. On Thursday, the company is signing a new contract for the re-implementation of one unit of over 800 MW in Rybnik. Wasiłek added that PGE’s management is aware that gas is a transitional fuel, which is why the units are being adapted to run on hydrogen fuel.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński