Companies trading electricity in Poland face a sharp rise in the annual concession fee they pay to the state. The government is drafting changes expected to bring the budget roughly PLN 3.5 billion a year, while energy groups warn their extra costs will be counted in hundreds of millions of zlotys. Part of that bill may land on consumers.
Under the rules in force today, the annual concession fee cannot exceed PLN 2.5 million. It is calculated with a rate of 0.0005 percent of the value of the electricity traded during a given year, and it may not be lower than PLN 1,000.
Minimum fee up, PLN 2.5 million cap scrapped
The government’s draft amendment, reported by „Wirtualna Polska”, lifts the minimum concession fee from PLN 1,000 to PLN 5,000. The stated reason is that the floor has stayed at the same level since 2018, and in the future it is to be indexed to inflation.
That is only one element of the plan. The current PLN 2.5 million ceiling is to be abolished, with the fee tied to revenues generated from electricity trading. The coefficient used to compute it would grow tenfold, from 0.0005 percent to 0.005 percent of revenue from electricity sales, which means far higher payments for the largest entities.
The Ministry of Energy estimates in the regulatory impact assessment that the new method of calculating concession fees would push budget revenue from this source to about PLN 3.564 billion annually.
Hundreds of millions in extra costs
Marek Lelątko, vice-president of Enea, presented estimates of how the new rules would translate into the costs of a single energy company. His calculation indicates that Enea would have to account for a burden reaching about PLN 240 million a year – a sum larger than the total concession fee revenue collected across the whole country in the previous year.
Additional costs at other generators would also be counted in hundreds of millions annually. „Wirtualna Polska” notes that the fees are to weigh on all market participants in the same proportion.
– What, then, would stop them from adding this to consumers’ bills, especially since all of them are to be burdened proportionally in the same way? – „WP” reported.
Regulations allow concession fees to be included in the regulated tariff for households. It is not settled, however, whether companies will be able to pass the whole of the additional cost onto customers. The scope of any such move will be decided by the Energy Regulatory Office (URE).
– But even if the regulator does not agree to increases for households, business customers will pay – „WP” reported.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. Shutterstock/AstroStar
