The European Court of Justice has ordered Poland to immediately suspend lignite mining at Turow following a request from the Czech authorities over concerns that excavation was lowering groundwater in the area.
The Luxembourg court said the Czech request was justified and ordered mining to be suspended at the mine, which is located close to the Czech border, until a final judgment is made in the case.
The suspension at the large open pit mine will cause the shutdown of the adjacent 1,499 MW Turow lignite-fired mine, owned by Poland's largest utility, Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE).
Turow generates about 5% of Poland's electricity, with output of over 7 TWh/yr. PGE was scheduled this month to commission a 496 MW unit, which cost Zloty 4.26 billion ($1.16 billion) at the plant.
The court said a 2020 decision by the Polish authorities to grant Turow a six-year mining extension until 2026 without carrying out an environmental impact assessment potentially infringes EU law.
In a May 21 statement, the court said continued mining before a final judgment was "likely to have negative effects on the level of groundwater in Czech territory". The fact PGE was building an anti-filtration screen beside the mine was evidence of those potential negative effects, the court said.
The court said Poland had not proved its claim that a suspension in mining would lead to the irreversible shutdown of the Turow plant.
"Although the sudden unavailability of a power plant may have negative effects, the electricity network operators are able to balance the electricity network in order to compensate for such unavailability," the court said.
In a tweet, PGE said the ECJ's decision "is a path to a wild energy transformation. The EU's Green Deal fails before our eyes." No official statement was immediately available from the utility.
In April PGE argued a suspension in mining would be unfair because the Turow mine and plant generated electricity for three million households and provided a livelihood for tens of thousands of Poles.
PGE said that nine Czech and German lignite mines operate in close proximity to Turow, which is the sole Polish mine in the area. Eight of those nine mine produce more lignite than Turow, it said.
Poland has refused to comply with an interim order from the ECJ in the past, when it ignored a 2017 ruling to suspend logging in the primeval Bialowieza forest.
Logging only ceased when the court granted a subsequent European Commission request to impose daily financial penalties. In the Turow case, the Commission would also need to apply for emergency financial penalties if Poland refused to comply with the ruling.
