How Poland Is Building a Renewable Power System - R.Power Renewables

Poland has cut coal's share of power generation from 95% to roughly 55% in a decade, with renewables generating over 30% of the country's power last year. That mismatch is already producing negative prices and turning battery storage into one of the country's biggest investment opportunities.

Ed is joined by Tomasz Sęk, Founder and COO of R.Power Renewables, which holds a 1.7GW / 6.3GWh capacity-market-secured storage portfolio, one of the largest in Poland, to unpack how the country's power market is transforming.

They cover:

- Why coal's inflexibility, not its shrinking market share, is now Poland's biggest driver of negative prices and battery arbitrage.

- How Poland's capacity market is evolving as de-rating factors and CapEx fall together, and what that means for the next wave of battery investment.

- Why R.Power blends floor-plus-profit-share deals — including its new Axpo agreement — with full-toll contracts to balance risk and upside

- How solar PPAs are evolving into Hybrid PPAs, as corporates like Amazon and Cisco look for more flexible, peak-shifted power

- How R.Power plans to bring its 1.7GW / 6.3GWh capacity-market-secured portfolio online within 18–24 months, and what's setting the pace

Want to go deeper on the Polish power market? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, for the latest on Polish battery revenues, capacity market results, and grid dynamics.

Transcript available here

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:08 Poland's Coal-to-Renewables Shift

1:57 Perception vs Reality of Poland's Energy Mix

4:52 Negative Prices and Coal's Inflexibility

5:58 Gas Peakers vs Battery Storage

7:45 Poland's Vertically Integrated Power Market

8:46 Day-Ahead vs Intraday Trading in Poland

9:54 Choosing a Route-to-Market Partner

12:06 Capacity Market Explained

13:21 R.Power's 1.7GW / 6.3GWh Portfolio

13:57 De-Rating Factors and Falling CapEx

17:00 Dunkelflaute and the Case for Gas

17:21 The Axpo Deal: Floor Plus Profit Share

19:51 Solar PPAs and the Rise of Hybrid PPAs

20:26 Multi-Technology PPAs and Peak Shifting

22:00 What's Slowing Poland's BESS Rollout

23:46 Poland's Grid Queue vs Texas and China

24:51 One Regulatory Fix: Faster Auctions

26:50 Poland's Cost Advantage