Exploitation of Rivers in Poland for Electricity Production – Current Condition and Perspectives for Development

The energy of flowing water is one of the most popular source of renewable energy all over the World. In Poland, there are difficult landscape conditions to build a large hydropower plant, so there are only 13 power plants with nominal capacity over 10 MW. 75% of potential power is produced in pumped-storage hydropower plants. These plants do not produce energy but only allow to store it as potential energy of water pumped back to the upper (head) reservoir. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, there was no development in that area. However, in Poland, there still is a reserve to build a few large hydropower plants, especially in the lower Vistula and it is possible to build a few hundred of small hydropower plants on smaller watercourses.