Poland publishes consolidated capacity market act with status at 28 September

Marszałek Sejmu has announced a consolidated text of Poland’s capacity market act, fixing the legal status at 28 September 2026. The announcement, dated 2 October 2026 and signed by W. Czarzasty, was published in the Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej of 26 October 2026 as Dz.U. 2026 poz. 1400. It restates the 2017 law that governs capacity auctions, capacity obligations and the capacity charge levied on final consumers.

The announcement was issued under Article 16(1) of the act of 20 July 2000 on the promulgation of normative acts (Dz. U. z 2019 r. poz. 1461 oraz z 2026 r. poz. 912). The consolidated text covers the act of 8 December 2017 on the capacity market (Dz. U. z 2025 r. poz. 610) and incorporates two later amendments: the act of 20 May 2021 amending the Energy Law and certain other acts (Dz. U. poz. 1093, 1505, 1642 i 2269, with later changes) and the act of 12 September 2025 on the heating allowance and on amending certain acts to limit electricity prices (Dz. U. poz. 1302).

The act states that, within its scope, it serves to apply Regulation (EU) 2024/1747 of 13 June 2024 amending Regulations (EU) 2019/942 and (EU) 2019/943 on improving the Union electricity market design. Its declared purpose is to guarantee medium- and long-term security of electricity supply to final consumers in a cost-effective, non-discriminatory way.

Certification and the auction calendar

The transmission system operator (operator) runs five separate certification tracks — general, main auction, additional auctions, supplementary auction and top-up auction — and keeps the capacity market register.

• General certification opens no later than week 2 of each year and closes no later than week 11.
• The main auction is held in the fifth year before the delivery period, between 1 and 22 December; the operator announces the date by 1 March.
• Additional auctions, covering individual quarters, take place in the first quarter of the year following the announcement.
• The supplementary auction covers the delivery periods from 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2028; the top-up auction may follow a main auction where security of supply is at risk.
• The emission limit is set at 550 g of CO2 from fossil fuels per kWh; a unit emitting no more than 450 kg per MWh may obtain a contract two delivery periods longer.
• Contracts may run for up to 15 delivery periods for new units and up to 5 for modernised units and demand reduction units.
• Foreign capacity may compete from the German, Czech and Slovak systems (synchronous profile zone), Lithuania and Sweden.

Prices, penalties and settlement

Auctions are multi-round with a declining price, starting from a maximum price; the minimum price is 0.01 zł/kW/month. Prezes Urzędu Regulacji Energetyki (Prezes URE) calculates the unit penalty rate for each delivery year and publishes it by 15 December of the preceding year.

• Penalties for non-performance are capped at twice the product of the largest capacity obligation and the highest closing price of the delivery year, with a monthly ceiling of one fifth of that amount.
• Administrative fines imposed by Prezes URE may not exceed 5% of the sanctioned undertaking’s revenue in the previous tax year.
• Financial settlement is handled by Zarządca Rozliczeń S.A., which acts as capacity market settlement manager under Article 61(2).
• Remuneration is paid after each month of the delivery period, and prices in multi-year contracts are indexed annually to the consumer price index published by Prezes Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego in Monitor Polski.
• Suppliers delivering above their obligation receive a premium funded from redistributed penalty money.

Capacity charge and consumer groups

The capacity charge has been collected since 1 January 2021. Prezes URE calculates the rates and publishes them, together with the peak hours set separately for each quarter, in the Biuletyn Urzędu Regulacji Energetyki by 31 October each year.

• Final consumers are split into groups K1 to K4, with coefficients of 0.17, 0.50, 0.83 and 1 respectively.
• Transitional provisions in Division VIA apply until 31 December 2027: flat-rate consumers — households and points supplied at no more than 1 kV — pay a monthly amount depending on annual consumption, while other consumers pay a volumetric rate in zł per kWh.
• The consumption bands for flat-rate consumers are below 500 kWh, 500 to 1,200 kWh, above 1,200 to 2,800 kWh, and above 2,800 kWh.
• Under the 2025 amending act, the settlement manager and the operator had 14 days to report cost and obligation data to Prezes URE, who then had 30 days to recalculate the 2026 capacity charge rates.

Supervision and reporting

Minister właściwy do spraw energii sets the parameters of the next preliminary, main and additional auctions by regulation, after obtaining the opinion of Prezes URE and no later than 18 weeks before the main auction. Parameters for the supplementary auction are announced in Monitor Polski, and those for a top-up auction by 30 April of the year following the main auction.

The minister prepares an annual report on the functioning of the capacity market, submits it to Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów by 30 April, and that office forwards it to the Komisja Europejska by 31 May. Rada Ministrów was to assess the market’s operation by 2024 and report to the Sejm. Budget limits for the regulator’s tasks are set at 351,926 zł and for the minister’s tasks at 387,427 zł for both 2026 and 2027.

The consolidated text does not reproduce Article 37 of the 2021 amending act or Articles 16 and 20 of the 2025 act; their wording is quoted in the announcement itself, including the transitional timetable for recalculating the 2026 capacity charge rates.

For generators, industrial consumers and demand reduction aggregators, the announcement provides a single, authoritative reference for a market that decides several billion złoty of capacity payments and a charge embedded in every electricity bill. Because the status date is 28 September 2026, the text already reflects the supplementary auction mechanism and the transitional capacity charge regime that run until the end of 2027.

Source: Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, 26 October 2026, section I, poz. 1400 (official reference: Dz.U. 2026 poz. 1400).