Poland’s second largest coal producer to deploy 70 MW of solar at mining site

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Polish coal producer and electricity provider Zespół Elektrowni Pątnów-Adamów-Konin SA (ZE PAK SA) has announced its supervisory board has approved a project to install 70 MW of PV capacity at a depleted area of the extensive Adamów brown coal mine, in the centre of Poland, in Turek.

Costs for construction of the plant are estimated at around PLN200 million ($52.5 million), with a 24-month timeframe for raising investment, the company said in a statement.

ZE PAK added, administrative and legal approvals for the project are pending but it has secured no funding for implementation. The company has not specified if the project will power the mine or generate electricity to be sold on.

The solar plant may be intended to provide the group with capacity it lost in January, when the Adamow power station, a five-unit coal-fired plant with a 600 MW capacity at the mine, was closed.

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“The exclusion of the power units was dictated by the decision of the European Commission, acting on the basis of the derogation described in the directive of November 24, 2010, on the need to end the operation of generation assets of Elektrowni Adamów at the beginning of January 2018,” the company states on its website.

According to pro-renewable civil society group Fundacja Rozwój Tak – Odkrywki Nie, the Adamów plant was the 13th most toxic coal-fired power station in Europe in terms of its impact on human health.

ZE PAK has an 8.5% share of the Polish power market, according to its website.

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