Poland’s nuclear tightrope act at the east-west junction | Business | Economic and financial news from a German perspective | DW

Polish billionaire Zygmunt Solorz-Zak is considering investing in a Russian nuclear project in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave between two EU neighbors, Poland and Lithuania. This followed an announcement by Polish chemical company Synthos, owned by another billionaire, Michal Solowow, about the development of four small nuclear reactors. The Polish government also has its own nuclear power plans.

Synthos’ plans would appear in the 2030s at the earliest, while the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant (BEJ) could be built by the turn of the year 2028 and 2029, the newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported. The cost of building four Polish blocks with a capacity of 4 gigawatts is estimated at 105 billion zlotys (28 billion US dollars, 23 billion euros), while the costs for BEJ would be around 30 billion zlotys.

BEJ originally comprised the construction of two reactors with a capacity of at least 1,170 MW each, which were to be commissioned in 2016 and 2018. But construction of the station was suspended in 2013 when neighboring states said they would not buy the electricity because of their attempts to escape the Kremlin’s heavily politicized energy strategy.

The Russian nuclear utility Rosenergoatom (part of Rosatom) suspended construction for five years in 2019.

Tomasz Matwiejczuk, press spokesman for Solorz-Zak, confirms to DW that ZE PAK is preparing the implementation of projects relating to nuclear energy and that various options are being examined.

Since 1989, successive Polish governments have tried to decouple Poland’s energy sources from Russia, and the construction of a power plant in Kaliningrad that can supply the EU’s electricity markets depends on Poland’s consent to the construction of an “energy bridge”, an interconnection, between Kaliningrad and that Polish network.

According to the government’s energy strategy, Poland is planning to build six nuclear power plants. In 2033, Warsaw is expected to commission the first reactor in its first nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1-1.6 GW. Follow-up reactors should be built every two to three years until the goal of six units is achieved.

Warsaw unveiled plans to move away from coal dependency and increase renewable and nuclear energy earlier this year

The end of imported energy?

Poland’s electricity demand was 165.5 terawatts per hour in 2020 and electricity imports were 13 TW / h. The potential energy share of a nuclear power plant in Kaliningrad is approx. 15 TW / h per year.

“It should also be remembered that in 2020 almost 10 million tons of coal worth several billion zlotys were imported from Russia to Poland, which were then burned in Polish power plants and houses,” said Matwiejczuk.

“One alternative is clean, cheap energy and also from a power plant jointly controlled by Poland,” he added.

In 2020, the share of hard coal and lignite in the Polish energy mix fell from 73% in 2019 to below 70%, according to a report by the Instrat Foundation. According to Poland’s new energy policy, this proportion should not exceed 56% by 2030.
Renewable energies should make up at least 23% of final energy consumption by 2030.

Belarus Astrawez Power Plant

The Belarusian nuclear power plant Astravets is located near the border with Poland

Price prohibitive

“Investing in facilities for generating nuclear power is very expensive,” Wladyslaw Mielczarski, professor at the Institute for Electrical Power Engineering at the Technical University of Lodz, told DW.

“Recent construction in Europe indicates a final cost of $ 10 billion per 1 GW, which is 8-10 times more expensive than similar investments in combined cycle gas and steam turbine generation. The economic effectiveness of nuclear power plants is doubtful given the enormous construction costs, ”he added.

Rosatom logo

Rosatom is the largest electricity producer in Russia and covers over 20% of the country’s energy needs

Mixed reactions from the neighbors

Polityka Insight reported that Solorz-Zak may partner with the Hungarian state MVM on the Kaliningrad project.

The Prime Ministers of both countries, Viktor Orban and Mateusz Morawiecki, spoke on this issue several times, and the Polish side has not yet blocked this initiative.

MVM is already working with Rosatom on the expansion of its nuclear power plant in Hungary.

Hungary has four nuclear reactors that generate about half of its electricity, with natural gas 23% and coal 15%.

MVM owns Paks, which according to the Hungarian-Russian agreement of 2014 will be expanded to include two new VVER reactors, each with a capacity of 1,200 MW, which will be supplied by Rosatom. 80% of the investment is to be financed from a Russian loan of 12 billion euros.

Polish participation in the project may not be viewed positively by the Baltic states, which are cutting their connections to the Russian power grid.

“Poland is planning to expand renewable and nuclear energy sources, so I find it difficult to understand how Russia would export electricity to Poland. That sounds like a misunderstanding,” said Lithuanian Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys.

Immanuel Kant statue

Kaliningrad was once a city in East Prussia and the home of the philosopher Immanuel Kant

Polish government in the center

With the Warsaw government recently embroiled in a very public dispute with Washington over the treatment of a US media investor in Poland and restitution claims, the nuclear talks could give the traditionally Russophobic ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party some leverage, even angry at the green light the Biden administration for the Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2.

Due to the balance of power in the EU, PiS needs a close alliance with Budapest.

Robert Tomaszewski, energy analyst at Polityka Insight, thinks such a scenario is extremely unlikely, but it cannot be ruled out. “If relations between Poland and Russia improve, the Kaliningrad project can get the go-ahead from the government,” he told DW.

Even if there are problems with the stabilization of the energy system due to the rapid transformation and decarbonization, Warsaw could be interested in energy from Russia in the future, he told DW.

“But many EU countries will not be happy to have such structures right behind the fence,” said Mielczarski. Germany is one of them.

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