RWE AG (RWE.XE) is interested in buying strategic stakes in Polish power companies that come under the government's privatization hammer, Filip Thon, head of RWE Polska said Thursday.
"We're interested in the privatization of Polish power companies but only if we can become a strategic investor with a majority stake," Thon told TVN CNBC television.
Poland plans to sell integrated power group Enea this year. Two other state-owned power companies Tauron and Energa are likely to be sold in 2010.
The favorite bidder for Enea is Sweden's Vattenfall, which already owns 18.7% of the company.
Tauron's installed power capacity is over 5.4 gigawatts, while in 2008 it sold about 35 terawatt-hours of electricity and generated sales of 12.5 billion zloty ($3.85 billion).
Energa is much smaller in terms of generation capacity but has a 16% share in Polish electricity sales and 2.5 million clients.
RWE owns power distribution assets in Poland and last year formed a joint venture with local coal miner Kompania Weglowa to build a 800-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Poland.
The plant, scheduled to come on line in 2015, will have efficiency of 46%, Thon said.
"It can be a very profitable project," he said.
Average efficiency of coal-fired power plants in Poland is around 36% translating into very intensive carbon dioxide emissions for every unit of produced electricity.
In December 2008, Poland managed to win seizable concessions for its power industry in the European Union's climate and energy package. The key element of that is partly free allocation of CO2 emission permits to power plants until 2020.
RWE's new power plant will be able to benefit these exemptions.