Poland Brings Country’s Largest Gas-Fired Power Plant Online

State-owned PGE, the largest power producer in Poland, said the 1,366-MW PGE Gryfino Dolan Odra power station has entered commercial operation. The facility is now the country’s largest gas-fired power plant.

Officials on Nov. 8 said the station will supply about 5% of Poland’s electricity. PGE officials said the plant is “one of the most modern in Europe.” The investment “will strengthen Poland’s energy security and ensure a stable energy supply for more than 3 million households,” Dariusz Marzec, PGE’s CEO, said during Friday’s launch ceremony.

The PGE Gryfino Dolna Odra power station represents an investment of more than 3.7 billion zloty ($915 million). It is located in the West Pomerania province in northwest Poland. The plant features two units, each with 683 MW of generation capacity.

PGE officials said the plant’s nominal efficiency exceeds 63%. Officials said it is at least 70% more efficient than older coal-fired units. Poland still gets about two-thirds of its electricity from burning coal, although the country in recent years has moving toward lower-emission sources of power, including nuclear.

The new plant “has been designed to meet the most stringent emission limits,” according to PGE. The plant has an emission rate estimated at 330g carbon dioxide (CO₂) per kWh of generated electricity, which is almost three times lower than in coal-fired units.

Miłosz Motyka, the country’s deputy climate minister, said the new facility will “not only have a direct impact on the stability of the electricity system, i.e. on security, but is also another step in the transformation of our economy.”

“Gas investment is a very important part of the energy transition and the move towards climate neutrality,” said Robert Kropiwnicki, deputy minister of state assets. “We are constantly expanding the RES [renewable energy] system.” Kropiwnicki noted, though, that renewables “need parallel stable energy sources working as a base, and at the moment there is no more flexible capacity than gas capacity.” Renewable energy accounted for about 26% of Poland’s power generation in 2023.

Poland in the past week needed to import energy from neighboring countries, including Germany, Sweden, and Ukraine as a lack of wind led to a decline in energy production from wind turbines, according to Business Insider Polska.

Polish government officials have said they support a strategy to phase out coal-fired power generation and reduce carbon emissions, and have pledged support for developing renewable and nuclear power. The country at present has no nuclear power plants, and officials have said it will likely be another decade before any reactors are online in Poland.

Natural gas, meanwhile, is expected to increase its share of the country’s energy mix from about 8.5% last year to as much as 31% by 2030, according to the Polish Economic Institute.

—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).