Millions of PGE Obrót customers may be unable to verify their own electricity bills: invoices do not show the actual meter readings from the beginning and end of the billing period. Poland’s consumer protection authority says this makes the bills non-transparent and incomprehensible.
The dispute began with Bogdan Dziewulski, an energy auditor and former lecturer in electrical power engineering and high voltages at Gdynia Maritime University. He has been writing to PGE since 2025, arguing that customers receive only the result of a settlement based on hourly balancing of energy consumed from and fed into the grid, without the source readings needed to check it.
– Several million electricity consumers, including prosumers, PGE Obrót customers, do not receive the meter reading from the billing period (first and last day) in their invoices. In this way PGE Obrót violates the Energy Law, the climate ministry regulation and the guidelines of the President of URE, as well as the VAT Act, and in response to my complaints it still presents the same, but its own, interpretation of the law – said Bogdan Dziewulski.
At the center of his complaint is the „Measurement Data” table. Since 1 April 2022, PGE Obrót has filled it with values generated after summary hourly balancing. In its „Photovoltaics” brochure, the company reportedly explained that until 31 March 2022 consumption and feed-in were read from the meter, while from 1 April 2022 the figures are sums of differences after hourly balancing. In Dziewulski’s view, balanced data are not measurement data, so the table’s title is misleading.
UOKiK sees a threat to consumer rights
In a response dated 21 June 2026, UOKiK acknowledged the difficulty. It wrote that the lack of opening and closing meter readings prevents the customer from verifying calculations and makes the invoice non-transparent and incomprehensible.
– The lack of presentation of meter readings (opening and closing) makes it impossible to verify calculations, which makes the invoice non-transparent and incomprehensible – the office said.
UOKiK also cited Art. 38(1) of the Regulation of the Minister of Climate and Environment of 29 November 2022. Settlements must be made directly on the basis of metering and settlement systems. In UOKiK’s assessment, replacing these data with balanced figures, without reference to readings, violates that obligation.
– Depriving the customer of source data (readings) actually makes it impossible to effectively challenge the amount of charged fees, which violates the principle of consumer protection – UOKiK said.
The watchdog stressed its own powers are limited to cases involving public interest, not individual disputes. For individual cases it pointed to consumer ombudsmen and the President of the Energy Regulatory Office (URE). UOKiK also suggested that a complaint should note that other energy companies present meter data, proving that such presentation is technically possible.
PGE: readings alone would mislead prosumers
PGE does not deny that prosumer settlements are based on hourly balancing. It argues that showing the actual meter readings could lead customers to think the bill was calculated from a simple difference between two readings, which is not how prosumers are billed.
– The rules for settling prosumers result from the RES Act. The basis for settlement is not the simple difference between the initial and final state of the meter, but data after summary hourly balancing of energy taken from the grid and energy fed into the grid. That is why the invoice presents primarily the values that constitute the basis of settlement – PGE said.
– Simply adding actual meter readings could suggest that the amount due was calculated directly from the difference in readings, which in the case of prosumers does not correspond to the settlement rules – the company added.
PGE’s press office assured that the absence of readings is not a cost or technical issue, but a matter of correct and transparent presentation. Detailed information is available in the electronic Customer Service Office (eBOK), where prosumers can download a fuller report, and PGE advisors are available to explain specific invoices.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Energy is working on simplifying electricity bills for 16.5 million households. The planned changes are meant to make invoices more readable and individual costs easier to compare, but they are primarily cosmetic and do not alter the settlement method. For Dziewulski, however, the fundamental question remains: whether a customer can reconstruct the calculation from the invoice itself, not whether the layout is simpler.
URE’s own research from June last year shows why the issue matters. Only 41 percent of respondents considered energy invoices clear, and 40 percent described them as understandable. One in five said they had encountered a problem with an energy bill, most often incomprehensible charges or invoices and errors in billed consumption or charges.
Source: WNP.PL, Photo: Elzbieta Krzysztof / Shutterstock
