Opole is a 1,492 MW coal power station in Opole Voivodeship, Poland. It is operated by Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA. Based on reported annual generation of 6,563 GWh, it can supply roughly 1.9 million homes. It ranks #15 of 246 Poland power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1993, it is around 33 years old — long-established. Its annual emissions of 8,945,659 t CO₂/yr (EU ETS verified (EUTL 2023)) are equivalent to about 2.1 million cars driven for a year. In context, coal supplies about 50.4% of Poland's electricity; the national grid averages 589 gCO₂/kWh (31.5% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1019035.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The public capacity above is the current source-record value. A 2026 tracker candidate lists 3,332 MW for Opole power station, but it is not used as the public primary value until scope is verified (unit vs operating vs installed/project total).
Capacity claim grade: B_SCOPE_PARENT_COMPLEX - recommended action: build_parent_complex_model - confidence: not_comparable_without_scope. This follows a claim-based data model: value + scope + source + confidence, rather than silently overwriting records.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000103242); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 1,492 MW, Opole is well above the median coal plant in Poland (166 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
This facility's annual emissions are roughly equivalent to:
Equivalencies via US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies; emissions per EU ETS verified (EUTL 2023) (measured for US EPA/EU ETS, modelled for Climate TRACE).
Annual generation (GWh), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA. All plants by this company →
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 50.8°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 37% above the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 73/100 — this site sits in the top third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a mild atmospheric environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C2 — Low), with humidity / wetness the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #12 largest coal power plant of 93 in Poland by capacity.
Poland has 93 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 47,959 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 50.7514, 17.8845 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Opole is a 1,492 MW source-record coal power plant in Opole Voivodeship, Poland, commissioned in 1993.
Opole generates about 6,563 GWh of electricity per year.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 1,875,257 homes.
Opole is operated by Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA.
Opole has measured emissions of about 8,945,659 tonnes of CO₂ per year (EU ETS verified (EUTL 2023)).
