Last week, the Sejm adopted the Power Market Act, which is intended to act as an additional remuneration for state energy companies, for readiness to provide net available capacity in periods of tight power balance. In an interview with BiznesAlert.pl, former deputy prime minister and minister of economy, Janusz Piechociński, said that the bill voted in the parliament is underdeveloped.
Undeveloped bill
– The bill is underdeveloped. It is shocking, because it can be seen that after the corrections and after a major institutional and personal change there is a contradiction of the concept. Today, every fifth kilowatt hour of energy consumed comes from the wind and 75 percent of farms is on the verge of bankruptcy – Piechociński said.
In his opinion, the power market should be introduced in order to create a mechanism of predictability, not only in the area of building a nuclear power plant, necessary from the point of view of the scale of emissions and costs for the economy, but also the lack of energy and the possibility of its import.
– Photovoltaics alone will not solve the problems of the Polish power industry, and the demand for electricity in Poland is growing. In comparison with other countries, energy prices for industrial entities are also growing. All this affects the quantity and quality of investments made in Poland – the former deputy prime minister convinced.
Hidden costs
In an interview with BiznesAlert.pl he also referred to the arguments of opponents of the act, who believe that the introduction of the capacity market means an increase in energy prices and that by 2030, the Polish taxpayer would subsidize PLN 30 billion for the energy sector.
– Contrary to assurances, additional energy charges were hidden. The price for the recipient is growing. Please note how complicated the billing mechanisms are and how the fees are hidden. Among other things, the fact that we came to a gigantic merger of the mining and power industry, there was no payment for energy, added to the subscription fee for public television – the interlocutor of BiznesAlert.pl said.
False successes
In his opinion ‘the power market was and is needed, but a wise one’. Asked about whether another mechanism can prevent the growing problems of the Polish energy industry, he stated that first it is necessary to establish a vision of financing energy. – Wind energy was ‘killed’ in two years. There is a lot of talk about offshore wind farms, but little appears thereof. There is no consequence. A vision of stable financing for these most important tasks is also needed. The wrongly tailored, unprepared power market act, created without dialogue with society and politics is coming into force. Saying that there will be no increase in energy prices is a fiction. Meanwhile, it is enough to end up with propaganda and free distribution – Piechociński argued.
– We lost money from the European Union for the modernization of the energy sector. Bulgarians and Romanians received money for the modernization of the energy sector (coal – ed.), and Poland did not. In addition, large global financial institutions have deleted coal from financing. At the same time, for the money that should be allocated for investments, we bought old EDF coal resources, spending PLN 4.2 billion and we keep saying that it is a success because we Polonized the share in the energy market instead of doing it through investment growth and new blocks or modernization of the old ones – the interlocutor of BiznesAlert.pl said.