POWER October 2014 - 8

Poland Mulls Energy
Future
Resource-rich Poland's push to prioritize
coal as its main energy source and
to cultivate a nuclear power program to
boost energy security at the expense of
climate objectives has provoked its portrayal
within the European Union (EU) as
an energy renegade.
This September, however, Poland's Prime
Minister Donald Tusk, a long-time proponent
of free markets, privatization, and minimal
government interference, was elected the
European Council's next president. Tusk will
head the forum where EU heads of state
meet to set the bloc's political direction
(but do not have the power to pass laws)
starting on Dec. 1. The event has left experts
pondering how the leader's fierce
opposition to climate policy and development
of renewable sources and advocacy
for shale gas will affect EU policy. Some
conclude he may have influence over the
EU's overall climate policy trajectory, but
several more argue that his sway may be
limited to securing concessions for Poland,
which is opposed to EU climate targets.
The country's Ministry of Economy in
August unveiled a draft energy plan for
the country through 2050 that lays out
three future energy mix scenarios. One is
highly dependent on the country's coal
resources and infrastructure, another fore1.
Heavy on coal. Poland's energy sector
is historically based on coal, and Poland
has the ninth-largest deposits in the world.
Hard coal and lignite produced nearly 90% of
the central European country's power in 2012.
Source: Polish Information and Foreign Investment
Agency
■ Biomass ■ Hydro ■ Wind and geothermal
■ Oil ■ Gas ■ Coal
Electricity generation in Poland by source
3% 2% 2%
2%
3%
sees nuclear accounting for 45% to 60% of
the energy mix (Poland has no operating
nuclear plants, though two are in development),
and the third would reduce coal's
share from the current 88% (Figure 1)
down to 30%, with domestically produced
shale gas, renewables, and oil making up
the difference. The first two scenarios limit
renewables' share to 15%.
Significantly, the plan comes just weeks
before EU leaders are expected to finalize
the 27-country bloc's 2030 climate
and energy framework. For 2030, the EU
framework has proposed a 40% greenhouse
gas-reduction target that is binding
at the nation-state level and may not be
met by carbon offsets, and a 27% renewable
energy target that is binding at an
aggregate European level but which will
be voluntary for individual member states.
The European Council (not to be confused
with the Council of the European Union,
one of the body's legislatures) is next
scheduled to meet on Oct. 23.
A New Record for the
Longest Transmission Link
A 7,100-MW ±600-kV high-voltage directcurrent
(HVDC) line that runs 2,375 kilometers
(km) from new hydropower plants
on the Madeira River in the Amazon Basin
to major load centers in southeastern Brazil
became the world's longest transmission
line this August.
The Rio Madeira HVDC system was built
by Swiss power and automation technology
group ABB for a consortium comprising
Spain's Abengoa Group and Brazil's Abengoa
Construção Brasil. It consists of two
3,150-MW HVDC converter stations placed
at either end of the line: at hydropower
plants at Porto Velho in northwest Brazil
and in the southeast near São Paulo (Figure
2). ABB also delivered an 800-MW HVDC
" back-to-back " station that transmits power
to the alternating current (AC) network
in the northwest of Brazil.
The Rio Madeira project, built as part
of the Brazilian government's Program to
Accelerate Development, is a big step for
the country whose power system is about
75% hydroelectric.
The line is the country's second 600-kV
HVDC transmission system. In the mid1980s,
ABB completed the first HVDC project
(with a total rated power of 6,300 MW)
to deliver power from the 12-GW Itaipu
hydroelectric power plant. That 1,590-km
project was for more than two decades the
longest and most powerful HVDC transmission
link in the world. But in 2010, that
title was usurped by the 6,400-MW ±800-kV
Xiangjiaba-Shanghai ultra-HVDC transmission
system, a 2,071-km line that connects
the Xianjiaba Dam to Shanghai in China.
Another notable project in the works is
Siemens' 2,200-MW submarine HVDC link to
connect Scotland and England at 600 kV.
Companies developing HVDC transmis2.
For long-distance power. ABB on Aug. 27 commissioned the high-voltage directcurrent
(HVDC) converter stations for the 3.2-GW Rio Madeira HVDC link in Brazil-which, at
2,400 km, is the longest transmission line in the world. Courtesy: ABB
88%
8
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POWER October 2014

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