Poland aims to sign first nuclear plant EPC deal by 2026

Poland’s state nuclear company PEJ is aiming to sign a general engineering, procurement and construction contract with the Westinghouse-Bechtel consortium by the end of 2026. PEJ president Marek Woszczyk said he expects the sides to “shake hands” on the deal in the second half of the year, a milestone that would move the country’s first nuclear plant from broad preparation into the contractual phase that governs who builds what, who carries which risks and how credible the schedule really is.

The project is Poland’s first nuclear station in northern Pomerania, at Lubiatowo-Kopalino, where Westinghouse was selected to supply three AP1000 units. PEJ is the investor, with Westinghouse providing the technology and Bechtel responsible for delivery alongside it. Bechtel has said the plant is planned to provide about 3 GW of clean energy, a scale that makes the EPC contract more than paperwork: it is the document that locks in scope, local content expectations, interface responsibilities and the assumptions behind the construction timeline.

That shift is already visible in the work done so far. PEJ and the Westinghouse-Bechtel consortium signed an Engineering Development Agreement in April 2025, then PEJ signed an amendment on 29 December 2025 to continue design and field works, including in-depth geological surveys. PEJ completed the first phase of those geological surveys at the site in 2025, and in March 2026 the company said it was preparing a construction application. The commercial track and the regulatory track are now running side by side, instead of the project living mostly in announcement mode.

Financing and supply-chain moves have also started to harden the project. In February 2026, PEJ and the Export-Import Bank of the United States signed a credit agreement to support initial engineering and environmental site work before construction begins. In January 2026, Bechtel and Westinghouse selected Arabelle Solutions to supply turbine-generator sets for all three units. Bechtel also opened a Gdańsk office in 2026 to support delivery and build local workforce capacity.

The timetable still points to a long haul. A World Nuclear News report said PEJ expects first concrete for the first unit in the fourth quarter of 2028, which leaves the EPC deal as the real test of momentum. If PEJ gets the contract signed by the end of 2026, Poland’s first nuclear project will be past the phase of aspiration and into the harder, more irreversible business of execution.