Schools, hospitals, kindergartens and administrative buildings provide essential public services. Under repeated attacks on the energy system, they also form part of Ukraine’s resilience infrastructure. Thermo-modernisation can strengthen their role in maintaining essential services while reducing energy consumption and pressure on local energy systems. Renovating the public-building stock is also becoming increasingly urgent because of Ukraine’s 2030 targets and gradual approximation to EU requirements. The scale of investment needs is also substantial: as early as 2020, the European Investment Bank estimated the minimum investment needed to renovate Ukraine’s public buildings at €2 billion.  In this context, we present the report From Funding Instruments to Delivery Capacity: Scaling Municipal Public-Building Renovation in Ukraine, which examines the available support instruments and the barriers that constrain municipalities’ ability to prepare and implement energy-renovation projects. 

Poland’s economy is one of the least electrified in the European Union and, under current government plans, it is set to remain so. The newly published Electrification Action Plan proposes an EU-wide electrification rate target of 46% by 2040. In the same period, Poland, however, assumes that its rate will reach just 26.3%. This would be the lowest level of electrification in the EU, entrenching the country’s dependence on imported fuels and energy. An accelerated pathway for electrifying industry, transport, and heating could bring Poland closer to the EU target and, above all, strengthen its resilience to external price shocks while reducing energy consumption by 15%.

International cooperation is essential for advancing the energy transition and sharing knowledge across countries. To strengthen dialogue and exchange experiences, Forum Energii and Agora Energy China are implementing a joint project: Fact-checking energy transition thinking: stories from Poland and China. Poland has valuable experience to share as coal production and consumption continue to decline. China, as the world’s largest coal consumer and a leading producer of renewable energy technologies, plays a central role in shaping the future of the global energy transition. This project is an opportunity to learn from each other, fact-check assumptions and better understand how different countries are navigating the shift from coal-based systems towards clean energy economies – and the role of just transition policies in making this shift socially and economically sustainable. 

We are now at the midpoint of the current Multiannual Financial Framework. Looking back at the implementation to date, it is important to acknowledge that the Just Transition Mechanism, and in particular the Just Transition Fund (JTF), were new instruments that required significant institutional and administrative adjustments from all stakeholders. The regulation establishing the JTF was adopted in June 2021. The majority of the Territorial Just Transition Plans (TJTPs) had been approved by the European Commission by the end of 2022, with only the Bulgarian one completed in 2023. At this point, the programming of the JTF was effectively finished and implementation could finally commence.

Negotiations on the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028–2034 are now underway. At the same time, Poland has initiated preparing its National and Regional Partnership Plan (NRPP), which will determine how future EU resources are programmed and distributed domestically. The stakes extend well beyond the overall size of the budget. The key question is whether, in a context of fiscal constraints and revised national programming rules, EU funds will be channelled into long-term, system-critical investments or diverted toward projects that are easier to implement or less contentious politically. Poland’s future economic growth will depend on the coherence of its investment framework and the accompanying reforms. Together, these factors will determine whether EU funding accelerates the energy transition and strengthens long-term competitiveness. Poland’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP)1 should serve as the primary reference point for programming. Alignment between the MFF and the NECP will be decisive in turning EU funds into an instrument of real economic transformation, rather than a mechanism for short-term spending.

Nearly a decade ago, the first work began on the concept of a capacity market in Poland. For the European Commission, it was a support mechanism for electricity producers. For the transmission system operator, it is a vital part of the energy market, providing tools to maintain required reserves and mitigate the risk of capacity shortages. Today, we can summarise the effects and the scale of the costs of the capacity market’s operation in Poland for the years 2021 to 2046—approximately PLN 200 billion. This means that the discussion on energy security cannot be limited solely to capacity itself. Security should also be understood as the ability to deliver electricity to consumers at all times and the certainty that this energy will be affordable. In view of the announcements regarding the continuation of support through the capacity market, a key question arises: is Poland achieving its goal of capacity adequacy and security of supply effectively, or rather is it entrenching a “capacity at any cost” approach?

Industry plays a crucial role in the Polish economy, accounting for 23% of GDP and providing employment for more than 3 million people. Poland is also one of the most industrialised countries in the European Union and represents an important link in European supply chains. At the same time, Polish industry is falling behind in the competitiveness race. The sector’s strong dependence on imported fossil fuels, which raises the risks in energy security and independence, combined with the progressing decarbonisation of the economy, means that without investment in modern technologies Polish companies may be less competitive than businesses from China and the United States. As shown in the latest report by Forum Energii, Modernisation or marginalisation. How can industrial electrification ensure Poland’s security, competitiveness, and economic growth for Poland?, technological solutions enabling the electrification of more than 60% of heat currently used in manufacturing industry are already available. Their implementation would permanently reduce the sector’s dependence on gas and coal prices, thereby strengthening its competitiveness.

Critical raw materials (CRMs) sit at the core of the EU’s clean transition: from batteries and wind turbines to grids and solar panels. With supply chains concentrated and exposed to geopolitical risk, the EU is increasingly looking to partnerships with like-minded countries. In this context, Ukraine has geological potential in some CRMs relevant to the EU’s clean transition, but its current role in EU supply chains remains marginal. Ukraine exported only two CRMs to the EU as primary raw materials – titanium and natural graphite – together accounting for less than 0.2% of Ukraine’s exports to the EU in 2024. We present the report “Critical raw materials in the energy transition: assessing Ukraine's potential for EU supply chain” prepared under Green Deal Ukraїna (GDU), a German-Polish-Ukrainian project, which was implemented as part of the European Programme at Forum Energii, with Forum Energii as a project partner.

2025_wrapped is a concise, data-first set of interactive charts. We have highlighted the most important trends in Poland’s power sector over the past year and the last decade. This New Year’s wrap-up is a warm-up ahead of our full report Energy Transition in Poland. Edition 2026, to be published this spring.

Ukraine successfully navigated the 2024-2025 heating season, a crucial test, aided by favorable weather, international support, and domestic efforts to restore infrastructure and develop new distributed and decentralized generation capacities. The energy system’s future stability now depends on protecting infrastructure, integrating new capacities, and addressing financial challenges in the sector.