Following on from the successes of the recent Repower World Summit 2025 in Katowice, Poland, we have recently received the wonderful news that the Polish government’s second nuclear power plant will be built in the location of one of these four existing sites of major coal-fired power generation:

- Bełchatów

- Konin

- Kozienice

- Połaniec

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These locations were announced by Wojciech Wrochna (the Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure and Deputy Ministry of Industry) in March 2025, at a press conference in Katowice as part of a general update on the Polish Nuclear Power Program (PPEJ).

The transition away from coal is vital for Poland’s future strategy. Coal has traditionally been the primary source of energy production for the country. Coal has been mined in Poland since the 18^th century, and there is an important social pride and heritage to this industry. The city of Wałbrzych in Poland had a coal mine which was shut in 1998. The result was a drop in revenue for the city, a reduction in population and loss of jobs, which led to severe economic decline. 14,000 workers lost their jobs, and unemployment rates went up to 40%. Over two decades later, Wałbrzych and the surrounding area still suffers from poverty and unemployment and can be regarded as an example of how not to transition to clean energy. The city of Bełchatów is another Polish city which has built its wealth and standing around lignite coal mines. The Bełchatów power plant is scheduled to be shut down around 2035-2036, due to a depletion of lignite in the region, and so the question is now what will become of the existing coal infrastructure, and how will the people of this region thrive without the coal industry?

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~ 57% of Poland’s energy mix came from coal in 2024. The district heating sector is also still heavily reliant on coal, where it accounts for ~50% of residential heat. The challenges Poland faces are that the coal fleet is becoming outdated and needs to be retired, there are limited renewable options (very little hydropower for example), no current nuclear energy installed, and there is the ongoing impact of the conflict in Ukraine which brings concerns around the cost of energy production. Poland is forecast to require an additional 20 GW of energy capacity demand by 2050, and analyses conducted in Poland by many experts have proven that C2N investment is necessary to achieve this. The coal-to-nuclear (C2N) pathway is part of a larger strategy by PPEJ to gradually transition away from reliance coal, diversify the country’s energy mix, reduce carbon emissions, and increase energy security. C2N also has the advantage of maintaining the stable operation and consistency of electricity generation (solely relying on renewables to replace coal can cause fluctuations in grid voltage and frequency due to variations in the weather and diurnal cycle).

The construction of the first nuclear power plant in Poland (3,750 MW) will be in the Choczewo municipality in Lubiatowo-Kopalino, which is at the Baltic seashore. This is a greenfield site where there have previously been no power plants. The North of Poland has a lack of coal resources and has historically needed to import energy. This choice of location for the first site allows the North to become more self-sufficient and balances the power generation which has traditionally been in the South.  

The second nuclear power plant will adopt the C2N pathway due to the highly encouraging economic and environmental benefits. Bełchatów and Konin in central Poland are currently the favoured sites for the C2N transition. Kozienice in eastern Poland and Połaniec in southeast Poland are considered ‘additional’ sites. The two sites combined will contribute 6-9 gigawatts of capacity and are expected to use Generation III+ water-cooled reactors.

The existing steam turbines are dated, and need to be retired, so the Polish Ministry of Industry are developing the second reactor on a location nearby to the existing coal power plants. This approach still largely realises the many benefits of Repowering. The existing grid connection will be reused, and local jobs will be kept as key competencies and skills for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants will be available. 90% of the jobs in a nuclear plant are equivalent to a coal power plant, such as drivers, technicians and electricians. Internal and external rail, road and canal networks, the intake, discharge and cooling water pump station building, car parks, land rights and nearby water sources for cooling can also all be reused, even if the original site is not developed further.  

A competitive process for the selection of the technology provider and general contractor is in place, which is set to be announced in 2026 or 2027. Locational, safety and environmental surveys will occur in parallel to the final selection of the site, before the next Polish parliamentary elections in 2028. The sites will be assessed for any factors which could preclude them from hosting a nuclear facility, including soil, ground, seismic factors, grid connectivity, flooding likelihood, mineral deposits, population density, and other technological requirements. The construction of the second plant is proposed to begin in 2032, with the first reactor unit of three being operational by 2040. The second and third units are planned for 2041 and 2042 respectively.  The technology vendor chosen will be expected to contribute equity to the project, and the Polish state will maintain the majority control, thus maintaining economic predictability for the project. It is expected that other Polish brownfield coal sites will also be converted to nuclear afterwards.

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For many years, the Coal-to-Nuclear pathway has been analysed and popularised in Poland by the DEsire  - Platforma Transformacji Energetyki , which is led by Łukasz Bartela from the Silesian University of Technology. In 2019, Łukasz and Paweł Gładysz from the AGH University of Science and Technology were invited by Staffan Qvist to collaborate on technical and economic analyses focused on repowering Polish coal-fired units. The study was called ‘Retrofit Decarbonization of Coal Power Plants – A Case Study for Poland’. The joint activities of this Qvist-Bartela-Gładysz Team initiated all our subsequent work at Repower Initiative. The DEsire project was subsequently initiated by the Silesian University of Technology in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and is financed by The National Centre for Research and Development. The DEsire project aims to develop a plan for the optimisation of decarbonising Polish coal-fired power plants by using nuclear reactors, and the team are in permanent collaboration with the Repower Initiative.

The DEsire team have presented the C2N idea to multiple levels of decision-making entities, including ministries, local government entities, and energy groups. Publications based on the team’s work have since been cited in many important reports on the C2N decarbonisation pathway, including the significant US Department of Energy Report from 2022. Their popularisation efforts have continued across publications, panel discussions, and hundreds of conversations with experts and decision-makers.

Kozienice and Połaniec were recommended for further investigation of repowering potential in a recent study by Łukasz Bartela, Jakub Ochmann, Grzegorz Niewiński and Henryk Łukowicz entitled ‘Potential for Repowering Inland Coal-Fired Power Plants Using Nuclear Reactors According to the Coal-to-Nuclear Concept’. All four proposed sites were evaluated by DEsire for brownfield C2N conversion potential from a total short list of 23 sites and scored well in this evaluation process.  

We at Repower strongly believe that the orientation of policies regarding future nuclear investments in Poland are largely the result of the sustained research and popularisation efforts into this field by the DEsire project and the activities carried out by the Qvist-Bartela-Gładysz team in 2019-2022.

Congratulations to Łukasz Bartela, Staffan Qvist, Pawel Gładysz, and the entire DEsire team for their amazing achievements in advancing this innovative C2N pathway at the highest levels in Poland.

We wish the Polish people every success in their journey towards decarbonising their energy production.