Clean Air

During the discussion panel “District heating and cogeneration. Investments in clean air”, Minister Kowalczyk underlined that introducing the Clean Air programme brought in not only an environmental result, but also served and educational function. Information meetings were held in nearly all Polish municipalities and included over 170,000 Polish citizens. That is a significant contribution for increasing the environmental awareness in the society.

“We are the first government officials to address the issue of air quality in Poland. We have prepared a number of programmes aimed at supporting and financing RES installations, thermal upgrading and carrying out connections to heating networks” - said the Minister of Environment.

“The Ministry of the Environment has prepared the District Heating Programme for smaller administrative units. We see that as a great opportunity to increase the energy efficiency of system heating” - the Minister added.

Renewable energy sources in each and every household

The Deputy Minister Mazurek spoke in a similar manner. The Ministry of the Environment believes that systemic dissemination of RES in households is particularly important due to the need to improve the quality of air.

“Taking that fact into consideration, projects aimed at improving energy efficiency and promoting renewable energy sources are perceived as tools helping to achieve the end goal of cleaning the air” - said Deputy Minister Mazurek.

“Hence the launch of the My Electricity programme, offering subsidies for photovoltaic installations in Poland. The main objective of the initiative is to increase the energy production from photovoltaic micro-sources” - the Deputy Minister summed up.

Deputy Minister Mazurek also reminded that green energy includes not only renewable energy sources, but also all the measures having a positive influence on reducing the negative impact caused by utilising energy sources.

Key raw materials for ensuring national energy security

In turn, Deputy Minister and Chief National Geologist Piotr Dziadzio pointed out that one of the key measures aimed at ensuring the security of national resources of raw materials should be expressly stated as one of the strategic tasks within the framework of the National Raw Materials Policy.

“National energy security should also be based on securing the existing deposits, but also on broadening the resource base through investigating and identifying new deposits of minerals” - said the Chief National Geologist.

Deputy Minister Dziadzio also expressed the need to find methods for protecting strategic mineral deposits against their irreversible loss resulting from land development.

"The exploitation of strategic raw materials determines the social and national security” - concluded the Deputy Minister.