On 15 June 2026 Wrocław hosted the Civic Energy Forum, organised by the Provincial Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management in Wrocław (WFOŚiGW; forum.wfosigw.wroclaw.pl).
It was attended by representatives of central government, institutions financing the energy transition, local authorities, the energy sector and academia.
One of the forum’s key moments was the signing of the ‘Energy for People’ declaration, which Wrocław University of Economics and Business (WUEB) joined as a signatory. The document was signed on the University’s behalf by prof. dr hab. Andrzej Graczyk, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Finance. For the University it is a step from regional cooperation to participation in an initiative of national significance.
The standing of the event
In the panel on the legal and systemic framework for citizen energy, chaired by Paweł Łapacz, President of WFOŚiGW in Wrocław, the speakers included Paulina Hennig-Kloska, Minister of Climate and Environment, Miłosz Motyka, Minister of Energy, and Dorota Zawadzka-Stępniak, President of the Management Board of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management. The programme comprised three discussion panels: on the legal and systemic framework, on managing energy within the grid, and on the financing and viability of projects. The presence of two ministers and the heads of the national and provincial funds shows that the conversation about citizen energy is now taking place at the national level.
Voices from the forum
Dorota Zawadzka-Stępniak, President of the NFOŚiGW Management Board, stressed the importance of cooperation between the Fund, the provincial environmental funds and local authorities, in which cooperatives, clusters and energy communities are to grow. Paulina Hennig-Kloska, Minister of Climate and Environment, drew attention to the economic dimension of distributed energy: energy produced and consumed locally, geared towards self-consumption and storage, reduces the strain on the system and the cost of expanding it. She also pointed to the greater resilience of a distributed system to crises and failures.
From Lower Silesia to the national level
WUEB’s participation in the declaration continues the agreement of June 2025, when the University and WFOŚiGW in Wrocław began cooperating to support energy communities in Lower Silesia (uew.pl/uew-wfosigw-umowa). As the Rector of WUEB, Prof. dr hab. Czesław Zając, said at the time, the aim is to build the competences needed to manage local energy effectively, and the University is “perfectly prepared for this: we have the right staff, the potential and the infrastructure”.
The ‘Energy for People’ declaration shifts the emphasis from infrastructure to people. In this model the resident is not merely a consumer of energy and a payer of bills, but a participant in a system geared towards lower costs, greater security and more resilient infrastructure. For WUEB it confirms that the University intends to take part in designing solutions that reach beyond academic debate.
