Poland’s coal-dependent power utilities are finding it easier to obtain funding as banks are more keen to finance their transition to cleaner energy after a period of stalled lending.

Until recently, lenders were limiting their exposure to coal-burning utilities citing their environmental, social, and governance policies. Now, with the US institutions reversing their approach, the situation has begun to change elsewhere, too.

“A paradigm shift by the US banks is starting to spread across the world,” said Maciej Gorski, a deputy chief executive officer at Poland’s top power utility PGE SA. “Polish and European banks are more and more flexible at the moment.”

Poland’s coal-dependent power utilities are finding it easier to obtain funding as banks are more keen to finance their transition to cleaner energy after a period of stalled lending.

Until recently, lenders were limiting their exposure to coal-burning utilities citing their environmental, social, and governance policies. Now, with the US institutions reversing their approach, the situation has begun to change elsewhere, too.

“A paradigm shift by the US banks is starting to spread across the world,” said Maciej Gorski, a deputy chief executive officer at Poland’s top power utility PGE SA. “Polish and European banks are more and more flexible at the moment.”

The country’s current and previous governments have been working on a plan to carve out coal assets from utilities in a bid to help them keep access to funding of vital renewable energy investments. The final decision whether to proceed with removing coal burden from their books is expected in the second half of this year.

PGE, the owner of the EU’s most polluting power plant, argues it is still committed to energy transition, investing in renewable power and energy storage, but it also plans to build more gas-fired plants to reduce CO2 emissions.

Not so long ago, gas-fueled plants were widely frowned upon by banks. Now, financial institutions, including state-run BGK SA and PKO Bank Polski SA, are vying to fund such projects, according to government-controlled PGE.

“The dialog with banks looks completely different than a year ago,” Gorski told a business conference in Katowice, southern Poland. “The fact that we’re an owner of coal assets is still not our competitive advantage, but it isn’t a big obstacle anymore.”

His statements were echoed by Dalida Gepfert, a deputy CEO at Enea SA, who said at the same forum that Poland’s third-biggest utility is also seeing a similar change of tack among lenders.