Construction will begin next month on 1,800 megawatts of new coal-fired generating capacity at Poland’s Opole Power Plant, owner PGE announced this week. A statement released Thursday by the state-owned power producer said its management board had approved a program of internal financing to build two 900-megawatt generators in a $3.78 billion expansion of the Opole plant, to be designed by the French multinational Alstom. The move came two months after PGE’s former chief executive, Krzysztof Kilian, quit his job heading Poland’s biggest utility amid reports the company was being politically pressured to proceed with the expansion despite rejecting it in April as unprofitable. Now led by Marek Woszczyk, the company now says the financing will allow construction to begin as scheduled Feb. 1, with the first unit to be completed in 4 1/2 years and the second less than year later. In […]