Who pays the most for electricity? There has never been such a situation in Poland

Due to subsidized rates for home customers, last year the Kowalski family actually paid on average PLN 778/MWh (i.e. PLN 96/kWh with VAT). Thanks to the subsidies, their bills increased on average by almost 10%. relative to 2022

Who pays the most for electricity in Poland?

– For the first time in history, in 2023, the industry paid more for electricity than households – says Bartłomiej Derski, expert at WysokieNapiecie.pl.

However, smaller business customers saw the highest rates on their bills. Households benefited from reduced rates, which were also valid in the first half of 2024.

In 2023, business customers connected to the low-voltage grid paid the most for electricity, as much as PLN 1,152/MWh (PLN 1.42/kWh gross). The rates for them approximately reflect the price level that would affect household customers if it were not for the freezing of rates.

Although it is small business that buys electricity the most expensively, the fastest price increase in the last 2-3 years has been felt by the largest industry. This is visible not only in the purchase prices of electricity itself, but also in network fees, which have almost doubled since 2020.

Industrialists remind us that it was supposed to be different. When the capacity market was introduced in Poland, energy-intensive plants were assured that the quality fee would be reduced because the cost of some system services would be covered by the capacity fee.

– The most severe increased burdens were on heavy industry, i.e. metallurgy and cement plants – explains the WysokieNapiecie.pl expert. – And it is clear that their economic activity has been limited, which we have also seen in other European countries. We also observed the effects of this in the form of reduced electricity consumption.

While industry, trade and services can already count on increasingly cheaper electricity sales offers, households could be afraid of exactly the opposite direction of changes. This is the result of the fact that we subsidized our own electricity purchases at home, paying for them much less than we would have paid in accordance with the approved tariff, while we all, as taxpayers, paid for the cost of the protective shield.

What energy price increases will occur in 2024?

Most likely, however, we will see much smaller increases, because the government wants to continue to subsidize energy consumption in households. Most of us still pay almost half the “frozen” (i.e. subsidized) electricity rate (PLN 41/kWh net). After taking into account distribution fees and VAT, until June most of us will pay approximately PLN 90/kWh, while from July we should switch to the approved tariffs, which would mean an increase in fees to just over PLN 1.50/kWh gross (with distribution ).

The statutory protection prepared by the government against the effects of increases in electricity, gas and heat prices will be very expensive for taxpayers, who also enjoy the reduced scale of necessary increases. The costs of all these solutions by the end of 2025 are expected to amount to PLN 8.2 billion.

Electricity prices in Poland are strongly correlated with CO2 and coal prices. This is a direct result of our energy mix, which changes slowly. Fees for EU CO2 emission rights have increased significantly in recent years, and since this money remains in Poland and should be spent on energy modernization, we should already have a large scope of changes in the energy sector behind us, but it would be so if the previous government spent these revenues for the energy transformation.