Ongoing debates around the EU’s climate package as well as the need to diversify in-house energy sources have inspired management at the Adamów mine to turn towards renewable energy. Useful in this move will be Adamów’s situation on post-industrial terrain and adequate infrastructure including transformer/switching stations and transfer lines.

The terrain Adamów’s future wind farms are to stand on consists of exhausted outcrops recultivated with the use of soil removed during mining. The area has been revived both technologically and biologically (with the application of a pioneer alfalfa crop). Such post-industrial land often develops into farmland of even better quality than original land, which is important in this case as we plan to use the open areas between the wind farms to produce bio-mass for a planned bio-gas plant that will supply local farmers. Both the wind farms and the plant will be located in a Communal Energy Park, a joint project by our company and local authorities in Przykona.

Each year we recultivate about 120 hectares in strip-mine outcrops in Władysławów, Koźmin i Adamów. Some of the regained terrain is turned into farmland, some into forestland, and some is used for water storage. There are water reservoirs in Bogdałów, Przykona and Janiszew, two are under construction in Koźmin and Władysławów. The reservoirs help regulate local water, which is crucial for plant and animal life as well as tourism and leisure in a region with no major water resources.

In a joint project with the Energa corporation we also plan to erect a wind farm on some of our post-industrial terrain in the Przykona commune. This farm’s target capacity is about 80 MW, the first stage foresees the startup of 40 MW in late 2012. There are also possibilities of expanding the farm to include private-owned land and outcrops in Władysławów and Koźmin.

Adamów’s future plans also foresee the acquisition of fresh natural resources to fuel the local power plant and our own Adamów plant. With this in mind we are in the course of prospecting. In 2009 we received a prospecting license for the Grochowy-Siąszyce area neighbouring on our existing terrain. The resources there have been initially estimated at around 100 million tons. We selected the prospecting company by tender, and if its efforts prove successful the Adamów mine will be able to look ahead into a secure future.