Polish lawmakers have cleared the way for power plants and combined heat and power (CHP) plants to draw cooling water from treated municipal wastewater starting 1 January 2027, with the new framework framed as a drought-resilience measure for the country’s generating fleet, UA.NEWS reported on 6 September 2026 (UA.NEWS).
Key takeaways
- From 1 January 2027, Polish power plants and CHP plants can legally use reclaimed municipal wastewater in their cooling circuits (UA.NEWS).
- Orlen Termika plans to spend more than 1 billion zlotys (about €230 million) over four years to tie three Warsaw-area heat and power facilities into the municipal sewer network (UA.NEWS).
- At the Żerań CHP plant, up to 80% of previous water use could be displaced; at Siekierki, the figure is up to 20%, according to Orlen Termika CEO Andrzej Gajewski (UA.NEWS).
- Energy Minister Miłosz Motyka described the change as “of fundamental importance for many of the country’s generating units” and a step toward better crisis preparedness (UA.NEWS).
- Last month, state supplier Enea curtailed around 1.1 GW of coal capacity — just over 1% of national capacity — after low Vistula flows (UA.NEWS).
What happened
Law unlocks a non-freshwater cooling source
The statute creates a binding definition of “water reclaimed from municipal wastewater” and authorises its use in the cooling loops of power plants and CHP plants — equipment that has historically drawn on rivers and other freshwater bodies to condense turbine exhaust steam (UA.NEWS). Lawmakers from The Left and the Polish People’s Party, both in the ruling coalition, tabled the initiative in May; Parliament approved the law in July, and President Karol Nawrocki signed it the week before the 6 September 2026 report (UA.NEWS).
What pushed the change through
Poland’s 2026 summer was defined by heat and falling river levels: temperatures above 40 °C set a national record, and several power plants were partially shut down as a result (UA.NEWS). The grid operator Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne invoked emergency measures three times during the season to keep supply secure — a threshold previously reached only twice across the preceding eight years (UA.NEWS). In August 2026, Enea cut output at two coal-fired plants on the Vistula, removing about 1.1 GW, slightly more than 1% of the country’s total installed capacity (UA.NEWS).
Who is spending, and on what
Orlen Termika, a subsidiary of the state energy group Orlen, will commit more than 1 billion zlotys — about €230 million — over four years to connect wastewater treatment plants to three of its Warsaw-area heat and power facilities (UA.NEWS). CEO Andrzej Gajewski said the Żerań site could displace up to 80% of its previous water intake, with Siekierki displacing up to 20% (UA.NEWS). The programme also includes heat pumps that lift heat from incoming wastewater before it is reused for cooling, allowing the recovered thermal energy to feed Warsaw’s district-heating network (UA.NEWS). Energy Minister Miłosz Motyka said the change is “of fundamental importance for many of the country’s generating units” and will help improve preparedness for crises (UA.NEWS).
Specification read
Putting Orlen Termika’s €230 million, four-year envelope against the two named displacement figures — up to 80% at Żerań and up to 20% at Siekierki — the Warsaw programme is sized to feed reclaimed water into three combined heat and power stations whose cooling duties sit firmly in the tens of thousands of cubic metres per day. Reclaimed municipal effluent for once-through or closed-loop cooling at that scale demands a treatment train that takes secondary effluent through tertiary polishing (typically coagulation/DAF or high-rate clarification, then sand or membrane filtration) and into a disinfection step — usually chlorination/dechlorination or UV — before it meets the heat-exchanger surface; corrosion and biofouling control on the cooling side then become the design constraint, not raw-water scarcity. A buy-side engineer weighing this class of project, where the inflow is screened–primary–biological (often A2O or MBR on a municipal plant) effluent and the receiving asset is a power or CHP cooling loop with strict intake-quality and discharge consents, should expect the bottleneck to be tertiary filtration, disinfection and the heat-exchanger-side water chemistry, all of which are discussed in the broader context of municipal reuse schemes and on our Industries We Serve pages. Operators with comparable heat-and-power loads can also benchmark against our Data Center Wastewater & Cooling Blowdown Treatment in Warsaw, Poland (2026 Guide), which maps the same regulatory and thermal-recovery logic onto a different high-heat-density user, and against the Data Center Cooling Blowdown Treatment in Jeddah 2026: Process Specs, Cost & Compliance reference for parallel work in another water-stressed grid.
FAQ
When does the new Polish regime actually allow reclaimed wastewater into power-plant cooling?
From 1 January 2027, under the law signed by President Karol Nawrocki in the week before the 6 September 2026 report (UA.NEWS).
How much is Orlen Termika committing, and over what period?
More than 1 billion zlotys, roughly €230 million, spread over four years to connect three Warsaw-area heat and power facilities to municipal wastewater treatment plants (UA.NEWS).
What water savings are the individual Warsaw sites targeting?
Up to 80% of previous water use at Żerań and up to 20% at Siekierki, according to Orlen Termika CEO Andrzej Gajewski (UA.NEWS).
Which treatment stages matter most when a CHP plant reuses municipal effluent for cooling?
Tertiary polishing (coagulation/DAF or filtration), disinfection (chlorination/dechlorination or UV), and heat-exchanger-side corrosion and biofouling control are the design-critical steps; the rest of the train — screening, primary clarification, biological treatment such as A2O, MBR or SBR — is the upstream responsibility of the municipal plant, with class-typical effluent parameters of roughly BOD 10–30 mg/L, COD 50–150 mg/L and TSS under 30 mg/L (general industry range, not from the sources).
