Poland to talk with Canada about 2nd nuclear power plant, awaits response from South Korea
Poland has begun talks with governments as part of the process of selecting a technology supplier for the country's second planned nuclear power plant; talks have been held with the Americans and the French, and talks with the Canadians are still to come, the deputy energy minister and government strategic energy infrastructure representative Wojciech Wrochna announced at a conference at the new headquarters of the Ministry of Energy (ME). He added that there has been no response yet from Korea to Poland's invitation to talks.
"We have initiated a dialogue, and this dialogue must take place at the government level, as well as at the investor and contractor levels, in order to put this whole package together. There is significant investment support, there is also export credit support, discussed at the government level (...), and licensing issues and technology selection are matters that take place at the company level," Wrochna explained.
He noted that the competitive dialogue process for the construction of the second nuclear power plant in Poland must be thoroughly prepared so that Poland is able to provide adequate local content and financing for the project.
"At the moment, we have begun talks with governments, we have spoken with the Americans and the French, and we will also talk to the Canadians. We have not yet received a response to our invitation from the Korean government, and we will contact our partners again to obtain their final declarations regarding their willingness to participate in the process of selecting a technology supplier for the second nuclear power plant," Wrochna said.
He assessed that only after this stage, which will last until the end of the first quarter of 2026, will the Polish side be able to determine the scope of the procedure in which bids will be submitted by partners.
When asked about the location of the second nuclear power plant and whether it would be Belchatow he stated that there are still two preferred and two backup locations that require analysis.
"As of today, nothing has been decided," said the Polish government's plenipotentiary for strategic energy infrastructure.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Energy announced that Poland had officially begun talks on France's involvement in the competitive process of selecting a partner to build a second nuclear power plant in Poland. Earlier, the Polish delegation raised this issue during the visit in Washington at the meetings with representatives of the US energy department.
On Wednesday, the ministry published a statement following the meetings held in Washington, indicating that issues related to competitive dialogue in the context of selecting a strategic partner for the second power plant under the Polish Nuclear Power Programme (PPEJ) were discussed, among other things.
According to the guidelines for the update of PPEJ, the two preferred locations for the second nuclear power plant in Poland are Belchatow (Lodzkie region) and Konin (Greater Poland), and the two reserve locations are Polaniec (Swietokrzyskie region) and Kozienice (Masovia).
As Poland's Ministry of Industry (MP) announced in March, the selection of a strategic partner for the construction of the second nuclear power plant is possible at the turn of 2026 and 2027.
The start-up of the first unit of the second nuclear power plant is planned for 2040, and the entire plant is expected to start operating in 2043.
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