Weighing the human cost of shutting the Bełchatów coal plant

The Bełchatów power complex is a major employer in the district of Łódź, Poland, and many are wondering how its closure will impact the town, its economy and its people. This article is the second in a two-part series exploring the future of the power complex in Poland, and the realities of the energy transition.

By Monika Manowska, Investment Advisor at Energy Investment Management BV and Economics student at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Ever since 1975, the Bełchatów complex has been the economic and social foundation of the small town in central Poland that it was named after, Bełchatów.

The complex is both Europe’s largest coal-fired power station and lignite mine, generating around 20% of Poland’s electricity and over 70% of its coal energy. However, with mine resources quickly diminishing and the expectation for lignite to run out by 2036, the power complex has an inevitable deadline looming over it.

Life after lignite: What comes next for Poland’s Bełchatów Power Plant?

Bełchatów: A town built around coal

Before the power complex was built in 1975, Bełchatów was an underdeveloped agricultural town which offered no prospects to its residents. The construction of the powerplant transformed the region into a major energy hub, boosting the local economy significantly and instantaneously changing the town’s focus and identity.

The residents of Bełchatów feel great pride over the complex and deep connection towards it, with everyone knowing someone working at the plant.

Today, 20,000 people work in the power sector and related fields such as mining, logistics or maintenance. Among them, 7,000 are employed directly by PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna), the state-owned public company that owns and operates the power complex.

This is a high level of employment in a region with a population of just 113,000 residents, with 55,000 people living in the city of Bełchatów. With such a heavy reliance on the power plant for employment in the region, it is very difficult for the people of Bełchatów to imagine what their lives might be like once the complex is gone – and understandably so.

As lignite is slowly but surely running out, the workforce must adapt quickly if the region’s economy is to stand a chance after the complex’s closure. Estimates show that 73% of plant and mine workers will retire by 2038, when the final mine is scheduled to shut down. On top of that, about 4,500 workers are expected to require retraining by 2030, which can prove a challenge for the local and national authorities.

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Residents left in the dark: Fear and frustration

While local and national authorities are slowly developing plans for the transition, many residents of Bełchatów feel left behind in the process.

Provided with relatively little information, residents find it hard to imagine the power plant shutting down. One of the town’s residents was quoted as saying: “Everyone has a friend who works in the mine. Bełchatów is the kind of place where nothing else gets produced.”

Among mine and plant workers, the topic of transportation has also become a taboo, with many feeling uneasy and anxious about the future loss of their lifelong occupations. The miners, in particular, feel left in the dark by the local government. According to one of them: “The transformation is a bit like the Yeti. We’ve heard about it, but no one’s seen it.”

However, the looming closure of the complex won’t affect just the workers employed in the power plant. The changes will affect most of the workers in the town, including small businesses. Luxury services such as beauty parlours are heavily dependent on the overall income level and prosperity of the people in Bełchatów.

An owner of one of the local beauty salons has expressed her concern regarding the subject, saying that “Once the mines are shut down, people won’t be able to afford luxuries like hair appointments anymore.”

The general population, especially the elderly portion that has witnessed life in Bełchatów from before the power plant was constructed, is afraid that the town will regress to what it once was: poor and left behind.

Many believe that despite the plant's noise and air pollution lowering the quality of life in Bełchatów, the plant is the town’s only saving force. When faced with the vision of the plant shutting down, many of the workers have declared their readiness to leave the region.

The movement is especially prominent amongst the youth, with only a third declaring willingness to stay in the town after finishing school. Many young people are already leaving for bigger cities or moving abroad, leaving behind an aging community afraid of the prospect of Bełchatów becoming a ghost town once the complex is no longer there.

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A political shift

The uncertainty and fear surrounding the future of Bełchatów has led the local community to choose a very controversial figure as the town’s next mayor: Patryk Marjan. As a candidate from the extreme far-right Polish political party Konfederacja (Confederation), Marjan was the party’s first member to ever become a city mayor.

In his first year as mayor of Bełchatów, Marjan declared that the town “should not be sacrificed on the altar of the Green Deal,” openly expressing his negative views towards the transition. The population who has voted for Marjan shares his sentiment: as another resident put it, “The people don’t care if the city is green, they are afraid there will be nothing left.”

Can the jobs turn green soon enough?

Turning Bełchatów into a hub for renewable energy seems to be the obvious choice when faced with the inevitable power plant shut down in the near future. According to estimates, green energy investments in the region could create up to six times more jobs than the current complex provides.

However, the developments towards sustainability are not progressing fast: PGE, the company behind the complex, employs nearly 28,000 people all over the country but only 606 of them currently work in renewable energy. So far, the plans for renewable energy in Bełchatów are limited and far in the future.
Despite that, some workforce retraining initiatives are already in place.

Over the past three years, the Solidarność trade union has partnered with external training companies in order to retrain workers in welding, machine operation, and electrical work. On top of that, the Polish government has also made promises to offer coal miners “generous” retraining opportunities, severance payments and pension schemes. As such, the current miners in Bełchatów are expected to be provided with a comfortable retirement.

However, the 5,500 contract workers employed in related sectors such as transportation will not be able to benefit from those initiatives. On top of that, even workers eligible for retirement might be left unsatisfied after decades of hard work that oftentimes shaped their identity and purposes.

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Missed potential

Apart from retraining initiatives, PGE has announced a rather unexpected vision for the mine-pit left behind after the mines close: a transformation into Poland’s deepest artificial lake, surrounded by tourist attraction activities such as skiing, golfing or kayaking. The idea has invited a lot of scepticism, with both industry experts and residents doubting that the tourist attraction will generate as much employment as the power complex.

Tourism is highly unlikely to replace both the scale and scalability of the coal industry. On the other hand, renewable energy projects could generate the thousands of jobs needed, as well as take advantage of the existing infrastructure in the complex. Transforming Bełchatów into a clean energy hub would be a significantly more effective use of resources, as well as a more reliable way of supporting the workers throughout the transition.

Another major issue is the time schedule for the development of the new tourist attraction, with PGE’s plan to finish it as late as 2070. This introduces a lot of uncertainty regarding the employment of the residents between the closure of the mine and the opening of the hub. “People will not wait to work for tourism, they will die,” said one of the residents. The matter of timing is a crucial one when it comes to Bełchatów’s situation.

The people’s transformation

As the biggest powerplant in Europe, the situation in Bełchatów is being closely followed by many. While much of the debate focuses on the need for energy replacement and emissions reduction, the human side of the story is just as important and should not be ignored.

As thousands of workers are facing unemployment in the near future, young people are rapidly leaving, and the political situation is shifting more and more to the right. The future of Bełchatów is uncertain and it's still too early to know whether the town will become an example of energy transitions or a cautionary tale.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Monika Manowska is a third-year IBEBs student at Erasmus University Rotterdam, as well as a part-time Investment advisor and manager of the East meets West Network at Energy Investment Management.