This is the last capacity market auction of its kind. It will be a significant boost.
- The main auction of the capacity market with capacity delivery for 2030 is to be held soon, on December 11, 2025, the last such auction in the current version of the capacity market.
- PGE declared its interest in participating in the auction with gas projects, and Tauron also spoke about the possibility of submitting gas projects to the auction.
- Capacity market contracts are an important element in supporting gas investments. The energy sector has repeatedly pointed out that investing in gas power generation is contingent upon entering the capacity market.
- The construction market appears to be a challenge. Enea recently canceled a tender for the construction of gas-fired power plants in Połaniec because no bids were received. Nevertheless, it maintains its plans to build gas-fired power plants in Połaniec.
Gas-fired power is gaining importance in Poland, gradually replacing coal-fired power generation and, thanks to its flexibility, effectively complementing weather-dependent renewable energy sources. The growth of this generation sector is already visible.
According to data published by the Energy Market Agency (ARE) in Poland, at the end of August 2025, the installed capacity of professional gas power plants (excluding industrial ones) amounted to 4,335.4 MW, increasing year on year by 31.2%.
In the first eight months of 2025, also according to ARE data, professional gas-fired power plants produced over 10.3 TWh of electricity, which meant a year-on-year increase of 35.7%.
Further gas-fired power units are under construction, including those being built by PGE in Rybnik and the Orlen Group in Grudziądz and Ostrołęka, and according to announcements, work will soon begin on the construction of Enea's gas-fired power units at the Kozienice power plant.
"An order to commence work – NTP (notice to proceed) – has been issued. The construction site will be handed over soon, and the first construction work will begin in January 2026, " Enea CEO Grzegorz Kinelski told WNP in October when asked whether the construction site for the gas-fired units in Kozienice had been handed over to the contractor.
Investments in gas-fired power generation are part of the strategies of energy groups. PGE and Enea, currently the largest electricity producers in Poland, are undertaking them, but Tauron's strategy also includes such investments.
Michał Orłowski , Vice President of the Management Board for Asset Management and Development at Tauron Polska Energia, told the WNP portal in October that Tauron's strategy includes gas investments in two areas of the group's operations.
- In the heating segment, where we plan that nearly half of the heat we produce from coal today will be produced from gas, and in the conventional energy segment, where we are preparing projects with a capacity of approximately 1,400 MW - said Michał Orłowski.
Experienced players are taking on gas investments, but things don't always go smoothly. Capacity market contracts are considered crucial for implementing gas projects, but such a contract is easier said than done.
PGE was expected to participate with its gas projects in the July extra-time capacity market auction with delivery in 2029. However, the group did not have time to properly prepare its projects and did not participate in that auction.
Enea, in turn, then contracted its gas-fired units, to be built at the Kozienice power plant, on the capacity market. Incidentally, Enea failed to secure this offer in the main capacity market auction for delivery in 2029, in December 2024, when the gas projects lost out to energy storage projects.
Now Enea must face another challenge that has arisen on the way to implementing its gas plans.
At the beginning of September 2025, its special purpose vehicle Enea Połaniec Gaz announced a tender for the construction of two gas-fired units in Połaniec, using CCGT technology, with a capacity of 530-680 MW, but no offers were received by the set deadline (27 October 2025) and the tender was cancelled.
Available documents indicate that potential contractors requested an extension of the bid submission deadline , but Enea refused. The group is not abandoning the gas project in Połaniec.
The last main auction of the capacity market in its current form will take place in December 2025.Enea maintains its plans to build gas-fired units at the Połaniec Power Plant – an important investment in the context of implementing the group's strategic transformation goals and restoring capacity after the coal-fired units are shut down. New guidelines and a timeline for this investment will be developed in the near future, Enea's press office informed us.
The main auction of the capacity market with capacity delivery for 2030 is to be held soon, on December 11, 2025, the last such auction in the current version of the capacity market.
- I believe that the capacity market is a guarantee of energy security and every effort should be made to ensure that it continues to function after 2030, i.e. so that further capacity auctions can be held - said Grzegorz Kinelski, WNP.
Returning to the auction scheduled for December 11, 2025, its date means that we will soon find out which gas projects were submitted to this auction and which emerged victorious.
Enea certainly planned to submit gas projects in Połaniec to this auction . We'll likely find out soon what its new plan is, once the above-mentioned tender is invalidated.
In August 2025, PGE announced tenders for the design and construction of the OCGT Rybnik gas-fired power plant (approximately 600 MW) and the design and construction of the OCGT Gryfino gas-fired power plant (approximately 600 MW). At the time, it announced that bids could be submitted for the former until November 10, 2025, and for the latter until November 24, 2025.
"These are projects whose implementation is currently contingent on obtaining a support system, in particular a capacity market contract. We are preparing these projects for the upcoming main auction," saidMaciej Górski, Vice President of the Management Board for Operations at PGE, during a press conference in September 2025.
Michał Orłowski, in the previously mentioned conversation with WNP, announced that the Tauron group is ready to take part in the December capacity auction with its conventional gas energy projects.
The parameters of the 2030 power supply auction favor gas energy."The projects have also passed the final stage of detailed certification. The final stage is the payment of an advance payment, which is due in November. At that date, we will make the final decision on launch , which will depend on resolving the final project risks, but also on the prospects for the next support and development system for the new capacity market," explained Michał Orłowski.
The parameters of the main auction of the capacity market for the delivery year 2030, announced by the Minister of Energy in August 2025, are assessed as favorable to gas energy.
One of the key auction parameters is the Corrective Availability Factor (CVF). For the upcoming December auction for gas-steam systems, it was set at 93.15% for simple-cycle gas turbines , 93.28% for reciprocating engines, and only 13.39% for battery-based electricity storage systems, among others.
KWDs are important because they serve to determine the maximum capacity obligation of a given capacity market unit that can be offered in a capacity auction. They indicate what portion of a given source's capacity can be offered in the capacity market.
At a given capacity price set in the auction, the higher the availability factor of a given source, the more of its capacity can be sold on the capacity market and the higher the revenues achieved, so the lower the KWD, the lower the revenues and the worse the profitability of the investment.
There is talk in the market that if the December capacity market auction with delivery in 2030 does not bring the results expected by PSE in terms of contracting available capacity, it is possible that a tie-break auction for capacity deliveries in 2030 will be held in 2026.
Gaz-System predicts an increase in demand for gas, driven mainly by demand from the energy sectorHow the fate of gas projects in Poland develops – and let us recall that, for example, PGE plans to build 5 GW of gas capacity after 2030 in its strategy – will of course have an impact on the demand for natural gas in Poland.
Gaz-System announced that the President of the Energy Regulatory Office has agreed on the National Ten-Year Development Plan (NDP) for the Gas Transmission Network for 2026-2035.
The company indicated that the KDPR for 2026-2035 assumes an increase in demand for the transmission service to 26-29 billion m3 of gas by 2031, mainly due to the forecasted demand from the energy sector, and then – by 2040 – a slight decrease in demand for the transmission service is forecasted due to the development of renewable energy sources and the launch of nuclear energy.
Gaz-System also announced that for the purposes of the National Broadcasting Programme 2026-2035, a forecast of demand for transmission services for the years 2025-2040 has been developed, taking into account various scenarios for connecting new generating units in several variants:
- Baseline Variant – based on current commitments,
- Energy+ option – expanded from 2030 to include additional recipients,
- Energy Variant 20 GWe – increased from 2030/2031 to include additional potential electricity consumers, maximizing the possibility of replacing coal-fired units with gas-fired units.
The graphic below shows how these forecasts turned out.
It should also be added that interest in investing in gas energy is high not only in Poland, which translates into the availability of gas turbines.
The Polish Economic Institute (PIE) reported in October 2025 that global demand for gas turbines is beginning to exceed the production capacity of suppliers.
PIE, citing Bloomberg data, wrote that gas power plant projects with a total value exceeding USD 400 billion, planned until 2030, are at risk of delay or cancellation due to insufficient capacity of gas turbine manufacturers.
It was indicated that the industry's production capacity currently allows for the production of approximately 60 GW of gas turbines per year, and in 2024 global orders amounted to 57 GW, i.e. almost exhausting the industry's production potential.
It added that forecasts indicate that demand for gas turbines will increase by 40% year-on-year in 2025, reaching 80 GW, and that demand is expected to peak (102 GW) in 2028, before rapidly decreasing to 70 GW in 2030.
It was emphasized that the global market is dominated by three suppliers: GE Vernova (25%), Siemens Energy (24%), and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (22%), which together account for 71% of production capacity. The remaining 29% of the market belongs to smaller companies, including Chinese ones.
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