The hydropower sector in Poland: Historical development and current status

Tomasz Kałuża, Mateusz Hämmerling, Paweł Zawadzki, Wojciech Czekała, Robert Kasperek, Mariusz Sojka, Marian Mokwa, Mariusz Ptak, Arkadiusz Szkudlarek, Mirosław Czechlowski and Jacek Dach

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2022, vol. 158, issue C

Abstract: The paper presents the historical overview and the current state of the hydropower sector in Poland. The history of Polish hydropower sector reaches over 120 years of tradition. The first power plants on Polish territory were built at the end of the 19th century. The development of the hydropower sector in Poland was irregular due to the First and Second World War. Moreover, the economic crisis of the 1970s was another factor affecting the development of the hydropower sector. After the political system change in 1989, favourable conditions for the development of the hydropower sector were created. Furthermore, the development of the hydropower sector was significantly affected by Poland's accession to the European Union. Currently in Poland there are 771 run-of -river hydropower plants of which 761 are small hydropower plants with installed capacity amounts below 10 MW. The total power of run of the river hydropower plants is 937 MW. The largest installed capacity is in the pumped storage hydropower plants, whose total installed capacity is 1433 MW. Poland ranks far in Europe in terms of installed capacity and production of electricity by hydropower plants. In recent years, the development of large hydropower plants has stopped mainly due to environmental and economic reasons. However, there is a constantly growing interest in small hydropower plants. The analyses show that the role of hydropower in stabilizing the power generation system in Poland is important. The hydropower plants provide a perfect answer for the development of other, unstable renewable energy sources.

Keywords: Renewable energy; Hydroenergy; Hydropower; History development; Sustainable development; Polish potential (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032122000788
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:158:y:2022:i:c:s1364032122000788

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112150

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().