Environmentalist group ClientEarth and think tank Instrat advised Poland to scrap its plan to merge state energy groups after they shifted coal assets into a separate entity as it would not deliver on the EU climate targets.
In October, state-run utility PGE elaborated that merging PGE with peers Tauron and Enea after offloading their coal assets into a separate state entity would spur the companies’ investment potential. The plan has been approved by the state assets ministry and the detail is being worked on.
According to Pawel Czyzak, an economist from Instrat think tank, aside from not going in line with the EU climate policy and not ambitious in closing coal assets, the plan would also harm the country’s finance.
If the plan is implemented, by 2030 Poland will generate 92.2 TWh of electricity from coal. It would mean fivefold the amount it should if following the EU climate policies.
Other than that, the country could lose PLN26.5 billion (USD7.06 billion) as it would take over the debt of PGE’s coal unit, even when the company could gain PLN31 billion (USD8.3 billion) from offloading coal assets. PGE has previously stated that in order to attract financing for investment, it has no other option but to discard coal.
Moreover, to guarantee the transparent process of phasing out coal, coal assets should be part of a portfolio of a listed company.
Poland is the only EU country that has not pledged to be carbon-neutral in 2050 and is still generates most of its electricity from coal. Nevertheless, the government has encouraged clean-energy sources investments and some of its state firms had stated they would like to be climate-neutral in 30 years.
