Polska Grupa Górnicza (PGG, English: Polish Mining Group) is the country's largest coal producer. In 2024 it expects to receive government subsidies of PLN 5.5 billion, Business Insider Polska reports, even though coal price is currently at historic highs.

Grzegorz Onichimowski, former president of the Polish Power Exchange (Polish: Towarowa Giełda Energii, TGE) and co-author of the Civic Platform's energy programme, also addressed the situation of the mining industry. On 20 November, at a conference organised by the Energy Forum, he warned: "The coal mining industry is facing disaster in the next several months if we do not figure out what to do about it."

The findings of Business Insider were addressed by Jakub Wiech, editor-in-chief of the energetyka24.pl website. In a post on X, he reported that since 1990, taxpayers have subsidised the maintenance of the coal sector by approximately PLN 260 billion.

The negligence of successive governments in modernising energy policy has resulted in Poland's energy mix being a disaster both financially and environmentally. Western European countries are in the process of planning the interconnection of transmission networks in order to efficiently distribute the surpluses produced by renewable energy sources (RES). In Poland in 2022, nearly 80% of all electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, 69% of which comes from coal.

In February 2023, Prof Konrad Świrski of the Warsaw University of Technology spoke to energia.rp.pl in the context of the record high Polish coal prices. "Mining is inefficient and expensive. Prices indicate that Polish coal is again more expensive than imported coal, so it is not surprising that imports are increasing again," said Prof Świrski. "Since we are not able to produce more, let's reduce imports through more RES, which can stabilise current power generation," he added.

According to wnp.pl website, at the end of 2021, around 76 000 people were employed in the mining industry. Some commentators on social media note that it would be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly to invest very large sums of money in enabling the reorganisation of this occupational group, rather than continuing to maintain mines. We have already written about the fact that the Bełchatów power plant is the largest single emitter of CO2 in Europe.

Source: businessinsider.com.pl