Plans underway for expanding geothermal heating in Poland
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With Geotermia Torun close to commissioning and more projects on the pipeline, the geothermal heating capacity of Poland is expected to grow in the next years.
After investing hundreds of millions of zlotys in geothermal projects in Poland in the last seven years, the country’s geothermal heating capacity may increase significantly with the imminent commissioning of Geotermia Torun. Moreover, at least two more geothermal heating plants are scheduled to start operations by next year.
If all goes to plan, there can be around 30 geothermal heat plants in Polish cities.
In May 2022, Geotermia Torun signed a long-term contract with PGE Torun for the sales of geothermal heat. PGE Torun is a local producer of heat and electricity and will be using geothermal heat to augment the heat from a gas cogeneration plant. Geothermal will account for about 8% of the district heating supply with the gas cogeneration plant contributing 91% and biogas heating rounding it up with an additional 1%.
At the end of May, Geotermia Torun also obtained a license for the production, transmission, and distribution of heat.
We had previously reported on the construction of the geothermal heating plant in Torun. The heating plant was built on the initiative of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. In 2015, the monks received funding of PLN 26.5 million (EUR 6.2 million). Later, the state-owned PGE group took over the city’s heating tycoon, i.e. the French company EDF. Both the newly established company PGE Torun and the Redemptorists have been awarded multi-million subsidies for new investments related to heating.