Polish power company ZE PAK SA has an 8.5% share of the country’s electricity market. Total investment in the solar project is estimated at approximately PLN200 million ($52.5 million). One of Poland's largest coal miners is turning to solar at site of shuttered power plant. Image: Mariuszjbie/Wikimedia Commons 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 ($52.5 million), with a 24-month timeframe for raising investment, the company said in a statement. ZE PAK added, administrative and legal approvals for the project are pending but it has secured no funding for implementation. The company has not specified if the project will power the mine or generate electricity to be sold on. The solar plant may be intended to provide the group with capacity it lost in January, when the Adamow power station, a five-unit coal-fired plant with a 600 MW capacity at the mine, was closed. “The exclusion of the power units was dictated by the decision of the European Commission, acting on the basis of the derogation described in the directive of November 24, 2010, on the need to end the operation of generation assets of Elektrowni Adamów at the beginning of January 2018,” the company states on its website. According to pro-renewable civil society group Fundacja Rozwój Tak – Odkrywki Nie, the Adamów plant was the 13th most toxic coal-fired power station in Europe in terms of its impact on human health. ZE PAK has an 8.5% share of the Polish power market, according to its website. Emiliano joined pv magazine in March 2017. He has been reporting on solar and renewable energy since 2009. More articles from Emiliano Bellini
Zespol Elektrowni Patnow-Adamow-Konin (ZE PAK SA) has received approval for plans to build a 70 MW solar installation from its supervisory board. The Polish coal and electricity provider will construct the PLN200m ($approximately PLN200 millionm) plant at the site of a closed brown coal mine in the town of Turek in central Poland. It is unclear at present whether the facility will power the mine or produce electricity that will be sold on. It is expected the solar plant will take two years to build.