Polish power utilities may explore their sites for 2nd nuclear power plant but without guarantee of co-investment

The plenipotentiary stressed that the second location for nuclear energy in Poland is also intended to respond to the challenges of the region's transformation.

"Hence these post-coal locations and hence in this project we see a role for the current host of these areas, namely PGE. We also potentially see Enea. These are the entities that are in these locations today, and they can, if they are interested, also join the preparatory rights regulations in these areas," Wrochna said.

"The Polish nuclear power programme will very clearly indicate that the preliminary preparatory works in terms of location studies [for the second nuclear power plant - PAP ed.], regarding the sufficiency of hydrogeological resources, seismic etc. (...) the energy entities present there can conduct, i.e. PGE will be able to start preliminary preparatory work to identify Belchatow, for example, as a potential site," he added.

However, as Wrochna noted, they will do this at their own risk because "today no one will guarantee them that they will be an investor".

"We want them to do it, we want these prep works to go on there because if they start them today, we will know faster what (...) will be possible to build," the government plenipotentiary stressed.

"On the other hand, (...) whether PGE will ultimately find itself as a co-investor in, for example, the Belchatow project, depends on whether PGE's willingness and capabilities will be expressed in this dialogue (with the market)," he added.

The selected investor is then expected to choose a technology supplier for Poland's second nuclear power plant.

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