The Polish electricity capacity market, introduced on the basis of an act which was adopted in early December 2017, is open to entities from certain EU member states. Accordingly, foreign generation and demand‑response capacity providers are able to receive remuneration for their availability to generate electricity or to reduce their electricity consumption, respectively.
This group includes generating units and demand side response units from those EU member states which have their electricity systems directly interconnected to the Polish system. In this regard, the respective Act on the Polish electric capacity market indicates three specific geographical zones: Lithuania, Sweden and the synchronous profile zone, covering the systems of Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are directly connected to the Polish electricity system. The Polish Minister of Energy determines the maximum volumes of capacity obligations that entities from each of these zones may offer.
There are two ways enabling foreign entities to participate in capacity auctions (i.e. auctions aiming to receive remuneration for availability to generate electricity or to reduce electricity consumption):
- offering capacity using interconnectors – in this scenario foreign transmission system operators are capacity providers and the relevant settlement procedure is agreed in advance under contracts concluded between Polish and respective foreign transmission system operators; or
- offering capacity using the physical units chosen by way of “preliminary auctions”, i.e. auctions carried out for each of the zones and permitting its winners (participants who submitted offers with the lowest purchase price and not exceeding the maximum volume determined for the zone) – in this scenario the capacity providers are operators of foreign units and they are entered into the specific capacity market register after the announcement of the preliminary auction results.
One of these scenarios shall apply to each of the zones, depending on what is agreed between the Polish and respective foreign transmission system operator under a specific agreement.
The first preliminary auction will take place in 2019. Accordingly, foreign physical units will be able to participate in the main auction for the delivery period in 2024. With regard to periods, in 2021-2023 foreign capacity providers are allowed to participate in the Polish capacity market only within supplementary auctions (i.e. auctions regarding a calendar quarter).
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