Porąbka is a 13 MW hydro power plant in Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It is operated by PGE. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 13k homes (estimated). It ranks #194 of 246 Poland power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1953, it is around 73 years old — an older, legacy facility. As a non-combustion source, it has no direct CO₂ emissions from generation. In context, hydro supplies about 1.0% 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 WRI1061543.
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 552 MW for Porąbka-Żar hydroelectric plant, 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 L100000603179); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 13 MW, Porąbka is well above the median hydro plant in Poland (4 MW). Hydropower converts the energy of falling or flowing water into electricity; output depends on rainfall and reservoir level, and large dams also provide grid balancing and storage.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by PGE. All plants by this company →
This hydro plant converts the energy of falling or flowing water through hydro turbines. It sits in a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 49.8°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 57% 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: 83/100 — 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 #10 largest hydro power plant of 32 in Poland by capacity.
Poland has 32 hydro power plants in this dataset, together about 2,169 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 49.8069, 19.2023 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Porąbka is a 13 MW source-record hydro power plant in Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, commissioned in 1953.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 13,014 homes (estimated).
Porąbka is operated by PGE.
