Power Industry Day is drawing on. We will celebrate it traditionally on August 14, the power industry saint patron day – Saint Maksymilian Maria Kolbe. We celebrate this day at fetes, picnics, official ceremonies.

Sometimes the celebrations are more splendid at other times less pompous. In each of our power plants one can find numerous photographs depicting celebrations from the past years where the pea-soup was served and adults were queuing in long lines to get beer for themselves, floss candy for the youngest and other ‘delicacies’ we had managed to provide for our workers in the hard times. We have always organized sport events, concerts and other forms of entertainment. Let us ask our grandfathers, fathers or even elder colleagues how this day used to be celebrated in the past.

Contemporary times are more affluent therefore the fetes, picnics, official ceremonies are more splendid but the solemn atmosphere does never change. It is obvious that our industry experiences better and worse times. We – Południowy Koncern Energetyczny, or even on a larger scale - the entire Tauron Group – do have clearly defined goals which are systematically accomplished. We construct new power units reaching for the state-of-the-art technologies. Quite recently aware of all the possible consequences, we became a stock exchange quoted company. We know that for the past ten years we have taken every opportunity to increase our company value. For a long time we have been an oasis of normality, stability and bright perspectives and this is not that frequent in present times.

This year’s Power Industry Day will be perceived through the 10th anniversary of our company and a decade we spent building it together. To others, PKE served as an example of a bottom-up consolidation and a vision of the Polish power industry. The company showed it can do well on the energy market. Today, as a part of Tauron, we also choose development and practically the same direction made available to us owing to the privatization via the Stock Exchange. Let us be frank – nowadays access to cutting-edge technologies is of no problem whatsoever, it is a matter of appropriate outlays and experts. The latter ones are top class in our company. On this day – one of the most important days for us – on the Power Industry People Day let us not forget about our experience and achievements still remembering how much to do is still ahead of us.

Jan Kurp