How Does Proof-of-Work Contribute to the Initial Block Creation in PoA?

In the PoA model, the PoW component is responsible for the initial mining of an empty block template. Miners expend computational power to find a hash below a target threshold.

This process provides the initial security and decentralization associated with PoW. The mined block template is then broadcast to the network.

It does not contain any transactions yet, only the header information.