Key takeaways:

• Record-low coal share in Poland’s power mix – for the first time on record, the combined share of hard coal and lignite in electricity generation fell below 50% for five months of the year.
• Record-high renewables share – in June 2025, for the first time renewables generated more electricity over the month than coal-fired sources.
• Record renewable curtailment – 1.4 TWh of renewable electricity was not delivered to the power system, twice as much as in 2024.
• In 2025, Poland added 0.5 GW of available capacity in onshore wind and almost eight times more in solar PV (4.8 GW), mainly non-prosumer installations.
• Onshore wind was the leading renewable source, accounting for 13.6% of total electricity generation.

The chart above shows the rapid changes in electricity generation that have taken place in Poland in recent years. The animated pie chart covering the period from the start of 2015 through the end of 2025 indicates that:

• Renewable deployment accelerated clearly from 2021 onward - in 2025, renewables already accounted for 31.2% of electricity generation.
• Coal, which provided more than 80% of generation in 2015, saw its share fall by 10.4 percentage points over six years (reaching 72.5% in 2021). The following four years brought an additional decline of 19.7 percentage points, to 52.8% in 2025.
• In 2024 and 2025, the largest increase in mix share was recorded for natural gas (by more than 2 percentage points). This was linked, among other factors, to new gas-fired units commissioned in the summer of 2024, as well as continued declines in wholesale gas prices.

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Generation and capacity trends

Animation 2 presents changes in Poland’s generation mix by source.

Chart 1 of 3 shows the change in generation between 2025 and 2024. The largest decreases were recorded for generation from lignite (down 2.6 TWh versus 2024) and hard coal (down 1.6 TWh). Generation from onshore wind was also lower (down 1.4 TWh), despite new capacity additions in this technology (more on this in the next section). Coal generation was displaced by gas and PV output. Generation from natural gas increased the fastest.

Hard coal still ranked first in annual electricity generation (57.5 TWh). Lignite came second (33.5 TWh). Next were natural gas (24.4 TWh), onshore wind (23.4 TWh), and PV (20.4 TWh).

The next chart (3 of 3) shows generation changes over the past decade. The latest year continues the long-running trend: electricity generation from renewables and natural gas is replacing coal.

The next set of charts shows available capacity in the Polish Power System (KSE):

• chart 1 of 4 – changes in available capacity in 2025 vs. 2024,
• chart 2 of 4 – available capacity at the end of 2025,
• chart 3 of 4 – available-capacity additions in onshore wind and PV over the past decade,
• chart 4 of 4 – additions across different PV segments.

The largest capacity additions were in solar PV. In 2025, Poland added 4.8 GW of new PV capacity. For four consecutive years this pace has remained broadly similar to the previous year’s level. Whereas in the early years of PV development in Poland, prosumers were the main driver of capacity growth, this changed in mid-2023 in favour of new, larger non-prosumer installations (>50 kW). In 2025, three-quarters of new PV capacity came from large installations. By the end of 2025, PV accounted for 26.1 GW of available capacity in the system.

Second in terms of capacity additions was onshore wind, which grew by 0.5 GW in 2025–more than eight times less than PV, and the lowest annual increase since 2019. By the end of 2025, available capacity from onshore wind totalled 11.2 GW.

Poland also added 0.4 GW of gas-fired capacity, most of it cogeneration units. By end-2025, available natural gas capacity totalled 5.9 GW.

Monthly generation

The next chart shows the generation mix by month over the past decade. Key points include:

• In June 2025 the renewables share in generation reached an all-time high of 45.6%, surpassing coal (hard coal plus lignite), which hit an all-time low of 42.3%. Record renewables generation was driven by exceptionally high wind conditions for June (wind output was twice that of 2024) and record PV production.
• From April to September 2025 hard-coal generation, for the first time on record, stayed below 50% (or only slightly above).
• February 2025 saw the highest fossil generation and the lowest renewables generation since November 2022, mainly due to exceptionally low onshore wind output for February (about half that of February 2024).

The next chart shows monthly electricity generation by source over the last decade. The first three views present aggregated values for coal (hard coal plus lignite), gas with other fossil fuels, and renewables. The chart has been designed to show generation for only 2025, 2024, and 2015.

The remaining views (4-9) show monthly generation since 2015, broken down by individual sources.

Coal-fired generation in 2025 was lower from March through December than in 2024. June stands out as the month with an exceptionally high renewables output, and it also recorded the largest year-on-year decline in coal generation.

Generation from natural gas was higher in every month of 2025 than the previous year. PV ended the year with eleven record months, and onshore wind with six.

Capacity factors

The eight views in the next chart present capacity factors for selected technologies.

A capacity factor is the ratio of electricity actually generated by a unit over a given period (for example, a year) to the electricity it could have produced if it ran continuously at full available capacity over the same period.

The capacity factor for gas-fired power plants shows much stronger intraday dynamics (chart 1 of 8). This reflects their greater flexibility compared with coal, i.e. their ability to adjust output to system conditions. The midday dip, driven by PV generation in the power system, is deeper in summer and shallower in winter (chart 2 of 8). The operating profiles of conventional units today differ sharply from those observed just five years ago (charts 3-5)/

Categorization of selected units shown in the charts:

• industrial: CHP Włocławek, CHP Płock,
• new (commissioned after 2010): Bełchatów (B14), CHP Stalowa Wola, CHP Żerań 2, Gryfino (B9, B10), Jaworzno 2 (B7), Kozienice 2 (B11), Opole (B5, B6), Turów (B11).
• 120 MW class: Adamów (B1-B5), Łagisza (B5-B7), Łaziska 2 (B1, B2), Siersza (B3-B6), Stalowa Wola 3 (B7-B8).
• 200 MW class: Dolna Odra (B1-B8), Jaworzno 3 (B1-B6), Kozienice 1 (B1-B8), Łaziska 3 (B9-B12), Ostrołęka B (B1-B3), Pątnów 1 (B1-B6), Połaniec (B1-B7), Rybnik (B1-B8), Turów (B1-B10).
• 360 MW class: Bełchatów (B1-B12), Opole (B1-B4).
• other: Chorzów (B1, B2), CHP Rzeszów (B1), CHP Wrotków (B1), CHP Zielona Góra (TG), Karolin (B2-B3), Katowice (B1), Katowice 2 (B9-B10), Kraków Łęg (B1-B4), Łagisza (B10), Łódź 4 (B3), Pątnów (B9), Połaniec 2 (B9), Siekierki (B7-B10), Siersza (B1, B2), Skawina (Tg3, Tg5, Tg6), Wrocław (B2, B3).

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Hourly generations

Coal is increasingly being displaced by renewables as more RES capacity comes online. In 2025, PV generated 20.4 TWh, covering 11.8% of annual electricity demand, while wind generated 23.4 TWh, covering 13.6%.

The chart set below shows the average hourly generation profile for a given source in each month. In other words, charts 1-5 show a typical day for a given month in 2024:

• Chart 1 of 5 shows average PV generation. As expected, output peaks around midday in summer months.
• The opposite pattern is visible in charts 2 and 3. Utilization of hard coal and lignite is lower when PV runs at its highest output.
• The lower operation of gas units in summer months (chart 4 of 5) reflects the fact that gas units in Poland are primarily CHP plants, whose operating profile depends on heat demand.

Out-of-market redispatch - curtailment

Poland’s power system lacks flexibility, meaning the ability to rapidly reduce and increase output. This reflects the structure of the generation mix, which still relies heavily on older coal units with an average age of around 40 years, several gigawatts of newer coal-fired plants, and a rapidly expanding fleet of gas-fired units. Beyond the flexibility provided by gas, the system has a strong need for behind-the-meter and utility-scale energy storage, which is only beginning to be developed. Additional flexibility could also be unlocked in other sectors, such as district heating, buildings, and transport, or directly on the demand side through dynamic tariffs.

When the system lacks flexibility and cannot absorb variable renewables output, the operator resorts to out-of-market redispatch (curtailment), i.e. limiting RES generation and wasting energy. In 2025, renewable electricity not delivered to the grid was twice the 2024 level. Nearly 1.4 TWh (chart 1 of 5) was curtailed, i.e. did not enter the system, and 97.8% of the lost energy was due to balancing reasons, with the remainder due to grid constraints.

The next chart (2 of 5) shows the volume of curtailed energy by hour and month. The largest curtailment occurs in summer months around midday, reflecting the Polish Power System’s limited ability to absorb PV generation.

Monthly records were set in almost every month (except May), as shown in chart 3 of 5.

Chart 4 of 5 shows how frequent curtailment is in Poland. It occurs during roughly one-third of hours in almost every month. The record month was April 2025, when the operator used curtailment for about two-thirds of all hours in the month.

The final chart shows to what extent non-market redispatch resulted from balancing constraints as opposed to grid-related constraints.

Power market - spot (day-ahead)

The impact of PV generation is also clearly visible in day-ahead spot electricity prices.

The chart below shows average monthly prices by hour in 2025. In summer, the so-called duck curve, a price pattern whose shape resembles a duck, was visible. For the first time, average monthly midday prices approached 0 PLN/MWh, and in June they even fell below that level, enabling households on dynamic tariffs to significantly reduce their electricity bills.

High PV generation during the summer days, combined with lower demand, pushed wholesale prices down. Conditions changed sharply after sunset, when solar output dropped and demand increased. In those hours, inflexible and costly coal units set the marginal price more often, and wholesale prices rose quickly.

Autumn and winter (chart 2 of 6) brought calmer profiles (the so-called elephant curve) with smaller intraday swings and a higher average price level.

Chart 3 of 6 shows all months of the year, allowing comparison of the elephant and the duck, while chart 4 of 6 compares monthly profiles from 2023 to 2025.

Out-of-market redispatch (curtailment) is not the only symptom of limited flexibility in Poland’s power system. Before curtailment occurs, market mechanisms already respond: in the day-ahead market, the hourly price results from matching buy and sell bids, and in oversupply conditions it can fall below zero. This happens at specific times when high renewables generation (for example, PV), low demand, and limited supply-side flexibility coincide (in the form of technical minimums, ramping constraints, shutdown and restart costs, must-run operation), while demand response, storage, or exports are insufficient to absorb the surplus.

In 2025, Poland recorded close to 400 hours (chart 5 of 6) with negative prices–twice as many as in 2024. The lowest volume-weighted average price reached -528 PLN/MWh during a June afternoon, the lowest price on record (chart 6 of 6).

Renewables shares in electricity generation

Renewables investments over the past 10 years have led to a significant shift in Poland’s power sector, even despite restrictions on onshore wind development under the former 10H rule and, more recently, the 700-meter rule, as well as delays in environmental assessments and permitting. The chart below shows the ordered hourly renewables share in electricity generation, meaning shares are sorted from highest to lowest within each year.

In 2015, renewables exceeded one-third of total electricity generation for only 25 hours over the entire year. In 2025, the number of such hours reached nearly 3,400 (note: the one-third threshold was chosen as a simple reference point to make the pace of change easier to see).

In terms of maximum values (chart 1 of 2), the peak in 2019 was 38%. In 2025, the maximum was nearly twice as high, reaching 73%.

Disclaimer: The report includes preliminary estimates for available capacity and generation in December. These figures will be updated progressively over the coming weeks.