Project background

With 38.7 million inhabitants and area of 312,000 square kilometers, Poland is consid-ered a strategic country in Central Europe. Polish economic growth and social stability have served as a model for neighboring countries. During the last ten years, Poland has carried out fundamental and highly effective economic and social reforms, includ-ing the transformation from a central economy to an open market economy. After the social and economic shocks of the early 1990s, Poland has shown stable economic growth in GDP. From 1991 to 2003, GDP in Poland increased by 64,7 per cent (based on 2003 fixed prices).

Productivity, including productivity in energy use, increased significantly in the above mention period. As a result, primary energy productivity increased from 118,3 PLN//GJ in 1991 to 203,4 PLN/GJ in 2002. While GDP has increased over the past five years, electric energy production in Poland has remained constant. Nonetheless, Poland still has high energy intensity in comparison to OECD countries. For example energy in-tensity in 1998 in Poland (0.79 MWh/1000 USD) was approximately four times higher than in countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

Power production in Poland relies on hard coal and brown coal. Ninety-five (95) per cent of electric energy is generated in coal-fired power plants, as well as in coal-fired heat and power stations. As a result, the share of carbon dioxide emission from elec-tricity generation represents 38 percent of the country's overall carbon dioxide emis-sions. In 2001, Poland's annual CO2 emissions totaled 318 million tons of CO2. Of this, 38 per cent of the emissions came from electricity production, of which 50% were attributable to electric motor systems (i.e., 60 million tons of CO2 per year).

Electric motor systems (which include motors, drives, pumps, fans, compressor, and control equipment) use 40 to 50 per cent of all electricity consumed in Poland. The share differs by end-use sector: from 40-90 per cent in production sector to 20-40 per cent in households and public services. Manufacturing activities (35 per cent), electric energy, gas, heat and water supply (17 per cent) and households (17 per cent) consti-tute the biggest share of Poland's electricity consumption, which totals 122.8 TWh an-nually.

The most significant application for electric motor systems (60 per cent of electric en-ergy consumption) is for raising pressure and pumping liquids and gases through pumps, fans, compressors, etc. in three industrial sectors: the manufacturing sector; the energy sector (gas, heat, and water supply); and the mining industry. The technical potential for electricity savings of electric motor systems in these applications in these sectors is 3.9 TWh/year. The remaining 40 per cent of electricity consumption by elec-tric motor systems is used by freight and passenger transport and for materials proc-essing. Total technical potential for savings is estimated at 6.3 TWh/year (which is 5.1 per cent of overall electric energy consumption in Poland).

The economic potential for electricity savings of electric motor systems is 5.6 TWh/year for a payback period of less than 10 years, or 3.1 TWh/year for a payback period of less than 6 years. The payback period within the economic potential is a conservative measure that only considers electric energy cost savings. It does not consider addi-tional benefits, such as the reduction of water consumption, air, and gas losses as well as automation and process management. Electricity savings of 6.3 TWh/year, or the total technical potential, would result in a reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Poland of 6.8 million tons of CO2 per year. This figure corresponds to 1.6 percent of Poland's total GHG emissions in 1997.