Impact on society and employees

Our activities and ensuring the continuity of electricity supply determine Poles wellbeing.

It is PSE’s particular concern to ensure the security of employees and contractors’ personnel providing services to our company. Therefore we incessantly take care of the development and security of our technical infrastructure.

We are a modern organisation fostering an innovative working environment. We care about the development of internal competences of our employees. We want to constantly strengthen the unique knowledge base in the organisation and the expertise of the PSE staff responsible for maintaining a secure and stable power system.

We are keen to strengthen awareness and educate the public about the functioning of the electricity market.

Impact on society and employees

How PSE’s activities translate into the transmission tariff and electricity bills

Electricity transmission from power plants to consumers is possible over an extensive transmission infrastructure. Responsibility for infrastructure on the part of PSE involves the need to carry out maintenance, inspection and repair work, and perform necessary, economically justified upgrades and expansions. This is aimed to address changes arising e.g. from an increase in demand and the energy consumption structure in the country, as well as the change of the structure and location of generating sources.

Maintaining the required quality parameters of electricity supplied and ensuring PPS operation security is associated with the need to purchase ancillary services provided by electricity generators.

Financing of expenses related to the transmission business, i.e. operating costs and capital expenditure, is based on the rules set forth in the applicable legal provisions, and expenses are covered by income from transmission services based on the application of the company’s tariff approved by the President of ERO .

The tariff is a set of prices and at charge rates, and conditions for their use developed each year on the basis of planned, reasonable costs of business, and return on capital employed in transmission activities, intended for the financing of investment projects. The costs providing a basis for the calculation of charge rates for transmission services are subject to assessment by the President of ERO who approves the Tariff in an administrative procedure.

In 2018, the PSE tariff included:

tariff charge rates calculated by the TSO on the basis of the cost of transmission activities and return on capital,
tariff charge rates set by the President of ERO not related directly to PSE’s activities – RES charge connected with ensuring the availability in the PPS of electricity from renewable sources. In 2018, the RES charge rate was 0 PLN/MWh,
tariff charge rates resulting from the Act on termination of long-term contracts (LTCs) not related directly to PSE’s activities – transitional charge related to the PPS access service.

All revenue collected by PSE in respect of the RES charge and the transitional charge is transferred to the Settlement Body, a company responsible for its redistribution to generators.

In connection with the entry into force on 25 January 2019 of the Act of 14 December 2018 on the promotion of electricity from high-efficiency cogeneration (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 42), as of that date the PSE Tariff includes the cogeneration charge rate related to ensuring the availability of electricity from high-efficiency cogeneration in the PPS in the amount of PLN 1.58/MWh. As in the case of the transitional charge and the RES charge, all revenue derived by PSE through the settlement of the cogeneration charge is transferred Zarządca Rozliczeń SA, a company responsible for its redistribution to generators.

Structure of charges in PSE’s tariff

According to the electricity market operation model in Poland, PSE settles accounts for transmission services with consumers physically connected to the transmission network within the territory of Poland, i.e.:

distribution system operators ( DSO ), for whom the costs of acquisition of services from PSE represent justified costs of business and are taken into account in calculating their tariffs for electricity distribution services,
final consumers.

The consumers identified above – physically connected to the PSE network – are thus responsible for all costs taken into account in calculating the transmission charge rates.

Generators do not pay transmission charges in respect of feeding electric energy into the network. They only pay the quality charge – for the quantity of electricity consumed by final consumers connected to their networks, plants and equipment, to whom they sell electricity.

Traders do not make any tariff payments to PSE, except the market charge, which is applied only to electricity imported into Poland from Ukraine.

In the case of distribution-connected consumers (DSO network), including households, the cost of electricity supply, in addition to costs related to DSOs’ activities also includes PSE’s operating costs, i.e. those related to the purchase of transmission services from the TSO by DSOs.

PSE costs in our electricity bill for 2018

Fig. 1. PSE costs in our electricity bill for 2018.

The average net rate of the charge for transmission services provided by PSE in 2018 (without the rates for support charges, i.e. without the transitional charge and the RES charge, which amounted to PLN 0/MWh in 2018) represented only approx. 4.7% of the average gross rate for households. The net rate of the transitional charge was 4.3%¹.

[1] After the entry into force of the Act of 28 December 2018 amending the Act on excise duty and certain other acts (Journal of Laws of 2018, item 2538), as of 1 January 2019 the transitional fee rates were reduced by approx. 95%. Consequently, in 2019 share of the transitional fee in the final consumer’s bill in a household will be much lower.

The bill amount for households is influenced mainly by:

electricity price,
distribution service costs,
value added tax.