POWER ENGINEERING IN POLAND BEFORE ENTERING EUROPEAN UNION: EXPERIENCES AND FORECASTS

Transcription

1 POWER ENGINEERING IN POLAND BEFORE ENTERING EUROPEAN UNION: EXPERIENCES AND FORECASTS Zbigniew Bicki Chairman of the Polish Member Committee of the World Energy Council ZBIGNIEW BICKI CONSULTING ul. Wiejska Warszawa Poland Phone: ; ; Fax: zbigniew.bicki@zbc.com.pl 1. Synthetic data on Poland and energy situation 1.1 Basic information on Poland Poland is a medium size country with an area of thousands km 2, situated in the central-eastern part of Europe. In 2000 the population of the country was 38.7 million inhabitants of which 62% was urban and 38% rural population. The average population density is 124 inhabitants per 1 km 2. Since 1990 the process of social and political transition has been initiated. It included deep reforms and structural transformation of the economy departure from the central planning of the economy and introduction of market principles. The beginning of the reforms was difficult: large decline of industrial production, high inflation and above 20% Gross Domestic Product decrease took place. In 1992 the downward trends of the economy have been stopped and since 1993 the economy started to develop, reaching in the GDP growth rate of 4 7%. [1] In 1995 Poland accessed the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and at the beginning of 1999 joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The accession negotiations with the European Union have been started. The reform of Polish Economy created the conditions for substantial economic and organisational transformation also in the energy sector. The new legal regulations have been introduced, and particularly in 1997 the Parliament passed the Energy

2 Law which is currently the basic norm regulating the legal and economic aspects of the energy sector activity. 1.2 General energy situation of the country Poland has relatively large resources of hard and brown coal, modest reserves of natural gas, insignificant of crude oil, small hydro potential and some resources of geothermal energy. The country has no uranium ores. During the last decades ( ) there was high development of the Polish energy sector: In the hard and brown coal mining large and modern production capacities have been created. Hard coal production increased from 51.2 Mton in 1950 to 201 Mton in 1979, of which 42 Mton were exported. Next in 1980s production of hard coal was decreased to 103 Mton in 2000 [2], [3]; Poland has no big oil resources therefore about 95-97% of crude oil products must be imported in 2000 import amounted to about 18.3 Mton. (about 80% from Russian republic and 20% from the North Sea) [3] Creation of the integrated national gas system was initiated in 1950 s. Transmission system of high methane gas was connected by major pipelines with the Soviet Union. At present about 70% of natural gas is imported and about 30% we have from our resources. The country consumption of natural gas in 2000 amounted to 417 PJ (about 12 bill. M 3 ) Poland has got modern power system, one of the largest in the Central Europe (I will refer to this in the next chapter). The rapid development of fuel and energy sector and particularly large production of hard coal and its high export enables general development of the national economy. Unfortunately, until the beginning of 1990 s several disadvantages aspects accompanied the energy sector development, namely (slide 3) High energy intensity of GDP, at least two times higher in OECD Countries; Excessive dependence on coal and unfavourable structure of primary energy use; High dependence of economy on imports of oil and natural gas from the single supplier (the former Soviet Union);

3 High degradation of the environment caused mainly by the excessive share of coal in the total energy supply, lack of flue gas desulphurisation equipment and high energy intensity of the economy; Low prices of energy carriers what resulted in the wastage of fuel and energy. 1.3 Power industry development up to 2000 and outlook up to 2010 During the last decades particularly in the period development of the Polish power industry was very dynamic [6] Installed capacity of power plants increased from 2.7 GW in 1950 to 34.5 GW in About 94% of that is installed in thermal power plants. The main production units are 360 MW and 200 MW blocks. The largest power plant is Belchatow with capacity 4320 MW (12 x 360 MW). A large share of the power plants are combined heat and power plants (CHP) Between the electricity production increased from 9.4 TWh in 1950 to TWh in Gross electricity production per capita was grown from 356 kwh in 1950 to 3752 kwh in 2000; In the years national transmission grid 220 kv and next 400 kv lines was created. At present high voltage lines consist of 45.2 thous. km medium voltage lines thous. km, 390 thous. km of low voltage lines. The power network supplies about 15.3 million consumers, in that about 11.1 million households; Currently the Polish power system has significant spare reserves of capacity (3-4 GW) Considering the spare capacity of power plants and expected low increase of power demand, the construction of new large power capacity up to 2010 is not necessary. In the future power demand will depend on the growth of the Polish economy. If in the present decade growth rate of the GDP will be at the level 3 5 % p.a. thus is expected that the electrical energy demand will grow up to TWh in It is expected that in this decade the further development of the Polish power system will be accomplished mainly by: Modernisation and reconstruction of the existing power stations with special emphasis on environmental requirements;

4 Construction of new units in CHP plants and units utilising renewable sources; Construction of new 400 kw lines with a gradual limitation of the 220 kv network; It is considered that a construction of a nuclear power plants will be necessary, probably around Reform and transformation of the Polish power industry With the reforms of the Polish economy the transformation of the power industry and implementation of the new national energy policy was commenced 2.1 Key elements of the new policy The major objective of the new policy in the power industry was to ensure the energy security of the country. The most important elements of this policy were [6]: Restructuring organisational and ownership transformation of the electricity companies; Electricity prices reform and creation of the energy market Improvement of the natural environment through the controlling and reduction of the environmental impact of the power industry. The implementation of new energy policy and particularly reforms and transformation policy in the power industry has been accelerated since the New Energy Law was introduced in 1997 This Energy Law is a basic legal act, which defines the principles of state energy policy, the rules and conditions for energy supply and energy consumption as well as the activity of the energy companies. 2.2 Organisational and ownership transformation As a result of the restructuring and organisational transformation, old structures were replaced by new business organisations, which function in market conditions. The organisational transformation was an introductory step to the ownership changes and privatisation of power industry companies. The process of privatisation is fairly advanced in a number of power stations and distribution companies. The first privatised company was in 1998 Krakow CHP plants. Later the Warsaw group of CHP plants was privatised.

5 In the last two years the process of privatisation was considerably advanced in other power and CHP plants (PAK, Polaniec, Rybnik, Gdansk, Bedzin) and in some distribution companies. Currently some activities aimed at the consolidation of power plants and distribution companies. The privatisation policy assumes that the State will retain the control share package in the strategic enterprises of the power industry, for example in Polish Power Grid Company. 2.3 Electricity prices reform Before 1990 the electricity prices were absolutely incompatible with their costs. In 1990, with the general reform of the economy the radical reform of electricity prices was started. The objective of this reform was to make the prices realistic and to regain the proper relations between the prices for industrial consumers and prices for households. Currently, the Energy Regulatory Office regulates prices of electricity. These prices for households, calculated in US$ using the exchange rate are in Poland about 50% lower than the prices in EU countries. The same prices calculated by Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) are however at the similar level to European countries [6]. This comparison is shown on slide Environmental protection At the end of last decade the environmental situation was very bad and in some parts of the country, especially in uppers Silesia, and in so called black Triangle even disastrous. The most serious environmental problems caused by the power industry were: [6] - air pollution by sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), nitrogen dioxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions - land pollution with solid waste from power stations and CHP plants

6 Along with the reform of the energy sector relevant regulations and measures were introduced in power industry in order to minimise the environmental pollution caused by power plants. The basic measures taken in the last decade were as follows: - steam coal processing and coal enrichment in the mines, which allows to reduce contents of sulphur and ash and increases the calorific value of coal - reduction of SO 2 emission by burning of higher quality coal and by installation of desulphurisation equipment in many power plants - further reduction of dust emission from power plants and CHP plants - modernisation of power plants, particularly boiler houses. As a result of the implemented measures the emissions of environmental pollutants from power plants were largely reduced. During the years reduction of the main pollutants from power plans was as follows: [6] - SO 2 from 1990 Th. tons to 915 Th. tons - NOx from 420 Th. tons to 247 Th. tons - CO 2 from 160 million tons to 146 million tons - Flue dusts from 770 Th. tons to 72 Th. tons Due to this achievements currently the emission of basic atmospheric pollutants per capita in Poland do not differ from EU average, except SO Activity in the power sector related to Poland s accession to the European Union Membership in EU is an important challenge for the Polish power industry. Therefore during the last years, multidirectional actions were undertaken in this field. These actions and targets in the power industry have been realised mainly through the new energy policy. Moreover, the targets connected with the accession to UE were defined by the White and Green Books as well as by other regulations in the forms of ordinances, decisions etc. Full realisation of the new energy policy and targets defined in EU documents are important for smoother integration of Poland with EU. Most of the required targets are already completed. Therefore, we expect that Poland became the member of EU in 2004.

7 DATA SOURCES [1] Small Statistical Yearbook 2001, GUS Warsaw, 2001 [2] Kumanowski M: Primary Energy Balance , Energy Market Agency, Warsaw 1993 [3] Kumanowski M: Primary Energy Balance , Energy Market Agency, Warsaw 1993 [4] Energy balances in OECD countries; OECD-IEA, 2002 [5] Energy Prices and Taxes. Second Quarter. OECD-IEA, 2001 [6] Energy Sector in Poland. Polish MC of the World Energy Council, Warsaw June 2002