POLISH state-controlled energy company Enea yesterday inaugurated Europe’s largest coal-fired power unit, at a time when other nations want to shift away from greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels.

Enea opened a 1,075MW-capacity unit, built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, at its Kozienice plant to join a dozen other units in the 250-300MW range at the site.

“The B11 section is the largest and most modern in Europe,” said the firm’s head of production, Krzysztof Figat, during a ceremony carried live over the internet to mark the €1.5 billion (RM7.2 billion) project.

Total capacity at the plant, which uses some three million tonnes of coal annually, mainly from the Bogdanka mine in southern Poland, is now nearly 4,000MW.

As well as the major plant at Kozienice, Poland is home to Europe’s largest plant at Belchatow, near the city of Lodz, one of the largest coal-fired plants in the world.

Coal remains a sector of primary importance in Poland, employing some 100,000 people.

Coal and lignite account for around 90% of Polish energy production.

“The new unit will increase the energy security of Poland and the Polish people, which is an economic and political priority for our country,” said new Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Warsaw recently slowed the development of wind power, and is still to decide on whether to build a first nuclear plant in a country suffering some of the worst air pollution in Europe. – AFP, December 20, 2017.