ambitious goals for 2040 for Poland


For the final version of the project of updating the national plan in the field of energy and climate (KPEiK) by 2030 with a perspective until 2040. You had to wait a bit. Submitting a document that will describe the strategy of reducing greenhouse gas and a comprehensive green transformation, requires Poland from EU law; It also needs a business that must know what framework in the coming years the national energy and other sectors will stick to. The date of presentation of the plan in Brussels was in June last yearHowever, its preparation in the new installment of the Climate and Environment Ministry announced only at the beginning of the last week.
The current KPEIK will now go to the Ministry of Energy, which, as on July 28, said Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska, “he will support the next stages.” The document must go through opinions (the joint committee of the government and local government and the Council of Social Dialogue) and the receiving bodies (the Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers, a permanent committee of the Council of Ministers and finally – the government itself). The finish line is Brussels, in which the European Commission may let the delay be forgotten.
Read also: Lost decarbonization of the economy? KPEIK will only be in June
“The goal had to be realized”
The fact of the temporary “slide” management of the climate ministry and the environment explains with the omissions of its predecessors and long consultations, but more important is what was in the plan itself. The ministry has not presented its full version, but a statement of the most important information – so we learn that the transformation is to help reduce the costs associated, among others with air pollution (PLN 100 billion per year), fuel import (PLN 1.2 trillion in 2015-2024) or extreme weather phenomena (PLN 6-12 billion per year), and also reduce, among others the number of premature deaths caused by smog (up to 90 thousand). By 2030 we are to spend PLN 1.1 trillinvesting in new zero -emission powers, energy networks or thermomodernization of buildings.
The ministry announces “System activities” (among them, among others, shortening of procedures, the development of dynamic tariffs or the construction of the infrastructure of charging electric vehicles) and “supporting activities” (e.g. support for research and development or cover for coal regions).
More numbers from the so -called The ambitious script (WAM script – with Additional Measures) we presented here – enough to remind you that KPEiK in its current shape announces, among others A complete departure from coal in the power electricity in 2040, and in heating five years earlier. “The largest modernization project after 1989”, which, when presenting the assumptions, talked to Deputy Minińska, is to provide cheaper energy, investment stimuli, and at the same time reduction of greenhouse gas emissions about 53.9 percent Until 2030, compared to 2005. However, some changes are striking.
Piotr Maciołek, an analyst for the energy market and a former member of the Polenergy Board, indicates that the lower assumed share of renewable energy in the energy mix compared to the previous version of the document from autumn 2024 (51.8 percent in 2030 instead of 56 percent), It probably results from the delays of regulatory changes that the ministry was forced to take into account.
– The adoption of the amendment to the distance act is constantly moving away in time, it also takes a long time to issue connection conditions for new sources. At the end of this decade, the goal had to be easily made – he suggests. Progress that is to take place over the next ten years, by 2040 when the plan assumes almost 80 percent energy from renewable energy (79.8 percent), it should be possible, among others thanks to windmills at sea. – In addition to a significant growth of land wind energy (production 91 TWh in 2040) and photovoltaics (47 TWh), it is the offshore industry that will have a very significant participation in the green mix for the next 15 years – to level 67 TWh, “says Maciołek.
Difficulties in heating?
The expert also considers as a “symptomatic” reduction of perspectives in the participation of nuclear energy; The previous version of the document from last autumn assumed that in 2040 the atom would be responsible for 58 TWh of electricity, while the current one indicates only 27 TWh.
-You can see that this amount of energy is provided only by the power plant in the Lubiatowo-Kopalino location, without small SMR reactors, without the second large nuclear power plant-says our interlocutor. – Even if we are not yet able to accurately estimate the costs and capabilities of the new SMR reactor technology, the authors of the plan could inform that they will correct this plan over time when the reality of investments in SMR increases. Such a potential future correction of the plan would indicate the potential of SMR, also in reducing gas consumption and acceleration of full departure from coal – he adds.
It supplements that the ability to completely resign from the energy use of coal in 2040 will directly depend on the pace of building gas sources, but also SMRs.
– As a rule, this goal does not seem too ambitious or impossible to achieve. On the other hand, the announcement of leaving coal in heating is more difficult to implement, and until 2035. In the power sector, investments related to the replacement of the production fleet are already underway, recently overwhelming auctions of the power market have been held, we are also beginning negotiations with the European Commission on the new shape of this mechanism – in the heating room it really is not much, and the goal is closer – notes Maciołek.
As he says, the heating sector really consists of hundreds of separate systems that need significant investments, and in the case of fuels such as biomass you have to reckon with limited availability.
– Of course, heating can electrify by taking over excess from renewable energy, large -scale heat pumps, electrode boilers or heat warehouses, flexible cogeneration systems may also be useful. All this will reduce coal consumption, but it will not allow it to be completely eliminated by 2035. To achieve this, in fact, every heating plant and a local network in Poland would have to have a specific investment plan adopted – he states.
Departure from coal? “Relatively cheap”
Asked about the projections presented in KPEiK on the possible decrease in energy prices (the unit cost of its production in 2030 is to drop by 11 %, in 2040 by 31 %), the expert replies that the information presented is so scarce that their assessment is basically impossible.
– We don't know what assumptions these numbers are based on, so it's hard to say anything more about them. The ministry of climate and environment presented only a presentation with selected points of the plan, but the document itself remains inaccessible. It is good that the plan contains two scenarios, but I think that it should also take into account additional possibilities – the appearance of technologies such as SMR, the risk of price shocks (e.g. on the gas market) or other events that would mean the need for correction. Variantity should be a good practice when creating such planning documents – says Piotr Maciołek.
He also notes that, contrary to the words of the ministry's management, the document does not assume a significant decrease in oil imports (compared to the level of 2005, in the ambitious scenario, fossil fuel imports are to decrease by 37 percent until 2040).
– When striving for transport electrification, such a decrease in consumption does not seem too high – indicates.
Aleksander Śniegocki, president of the Institute of Reform, indicates that the lower goal for renewable energy in 2030 results from the lack of stimuli for the development of land wind energy.
– In Poland, as many as 5-7 years have passed from her idea for an investment to launch it – He reminds, adding that lowering the indicator is the result of omissions in accelerating administrative procedures for windmills. However, the expert appreciates higher ambitions for 2040, which is to be a “important signal” for both the industry and the transmission system operator.
Read also: What about the 500 m principle after the election? Windmills hostage to political struggle
As for the departure from coal in the power industry in 15 years, Śniegocki replies that we have no choice in connection with the reality of the European energy market, and the script is real.
– (…) Replacing old power plants for black fuel with gas sources is relatively cheap and fast. Recently, appropriate decisions have accelerated. As a result, there are currently as many as 6 large gas blocks under construction (Gdańsk, Grudziądz, Kozienice, Rybnik, Ostrołęka, Adamów), which are created thanks to guaranteed revenues from the power market, and energy groups signal the plans of subsequent investments in the coming years – he says, emphasizing that gas should be used primarily as reserve units, and a planned decrease in gas consumption up to 2040 confirms. – However, the condition is the consistent expansion of the energy network, the reform of the energy tariff and acceleration of permitting procedures – he reserves.
The President of the Institute of Reform retains the distance as to the price optimism of KPEiK, which assumes that greening the mix will lead to a decrease in costs for both households (by 27 % in 2040), industry (28 % in the same time perspective) and the service sector (29 %).
– KPEIK assumes that the reduction of energy production costs will prevail over the increase in network costs, i.e. companies and farms will pay real energy for energy than today. However, we must remember that At the moment it is only forecasts based on modelingand not a guaranteed transformation effect – comments. He adds that an increase in the chances of such results can be used, for example, by moving away from permanent frostning of prices.
“Biogas termination policy”
As we mentioned, forecasts for individual industries can raise reservations. In response, we asked for the opinion of ambitious forecasts for heating, in response, in response, we heard that the president of the organization abstained from comments until the Ministry of the Climate and the Environment does not present the full version of the plan. The biogas industry is also dissatisfied. Artur Zawisza, president of the Union of producers and employers of the biogas industry, speaks for our editorial office.
– Electricity obtained from biogas is the largest loser of the new version of KPEiK, because compared to the version from 2024, the volume of energy from biogas, biomethane and biomass falls from 2 GW to 1 GWand in addition in 2030-2040 the production would fall, and not-as previously assumed-to grow, which looks like a policy of breaking biogas in our country – he states.
According to Zawisza, this is also in conflict with the declared plan to increase the use of dyarbonized gases in heating after 2035, or with the goals of the repowera plan, in which biomethane is to replace natural gas imported from Russia.
– if you add a new movement and operation of the transmission network approved at the PSE President, which does not take into account the specifics of biogas technology ensuring stability and predictability of energy production, and allows you to disable cogeneration biogas plants on a par with weather sources, it all seems to be sabotage (…) – Zawisza sums up sharply.




