A heatwave and low river levels are straining power generation across the European Union. In Hungary, the Paks nuclear plant, cooled with water from the Danube, has had to sharply cut capacity. In Poland, the Połaniec and Kozienice coal plants scaled back operations on Tuesday after cooling problems tied to falling Vistula river levels, which hit a historic low of 94 centimeters at Połaniec.
Energy analyst Jakub Wiech told Polish Radio 24 that solar generation, now a substantial part of Poland's energy mix, has kept the grid stable through the heat.
"If it weren't for our photovoltaic capacity, our situation would be worse than Hungary's", he said.
Wiech contrasted the current situation with August 2015, when cooling failures forced Poland to shut coal units, wiping out 2 gigawatts of capacity and triggering emergency power-rationing measures. "We don't have that problem now", he said.
Paks, which supplies roughly half of Hungary's annual electricity, had been expected to shut down entirely on Monday for the first time in its history after output was cut to just 8%. Budapest ultimately kept it running, helped by Hungary's own solar capacity and power imports, Wiech said.
The bigger risk, he argued, is contagion. Because European grids are tightly interconnected, a cascade of automatic plant shutdowns triggered by a frequency drop in one country can ripple outward to others.
"We are one system, one big copper plate", Wiech said, warning that instability in Hungary could spread through Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Slovenia and eventually reach Poland, posing a serious threat to the wider central European grid.
He identified the window between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. as the most dangerous stretch, when demand stays high but solar output fades. Poland's grid operator responded on Tuesday by activating capacity-market "calls", tapping reserves from firms holding capacity contracts to cover the gap.
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Source: Polish Radio