Delays in the amendment of the Renewable Energy Sources Act
These changes are a result of the current regulations contained in the RES Act. The draft bill proposed by the Ministry of Climate and Environment did not come into force before 1 July 2024. The amendment to the Act, aimed at increasing the predictability of net-billing settlements, is still undergoing consultation.
Impact of the changes on prosumers
The failure to pass the amendment to the RES Act with the changes to net-billing announced by the Ministry of Climate and Environment means that the hourly price came into force on 1 July this year. It will apply to all prosumers using net-billing. It is currently unclear whether, once the changes proposed in the draft are adopted, existing prosumers using the net-billing system will be able to revert to monthly billing. It is also unclear how the energy they feed into the grid in the meantime will be treated.
The new regulations may mean that surplus energy fed into the grid could be settled at a very low price due to a fall in energy prices on the exchange. Prosumers feeding in surpluses at the same time may lead to lower values of energy set aside under the prosumer deposit scheme.
New proposals for prosumers
- To increase the profitability of prosumers’ settlements under the net-billing system, it is proposed to amend the provisions of the RES Act to allow prosumers who were settled in this way prior to 1 July 2024 to continue to be settled based on the RCEm. However, prosumers will be able, by submitting a declaration to the supplier, to change the settlement method to one based on the market price of electricity applicable during imbalance settlement periods.
- An incentive to switch billing systems will be the possibility of increasing the refund for funds not used by the prosumer for electricity fed into the grid over the following 12 months (so-called overpayments) to 30%. If, however, the prosumer decides to continue using the current settlement method, the amount of their overpayment refund will not increase and will remain, as before, at up to 20% of the value of the electricity fed into the grid in the calendar month to which the overpayment refund relates.
- Additionally, the proposed Article 4c(4) of the RES Act provides for a modification to the prosumer settlement mechanism under the net-billing system by increasing the value of the prosumer deposit for a given calendar month by a correction factor of 1.23 and allocating it to the prosumer account in the following calendar month.
In summary, the proposed regulatory changes aim to increase the profitability of investments in prosumer installations, as well as to achieve greater benefits from the production of energy for own use in micro-installations.
As the drafters assure, the changes will not affect other energy consumers, as they concern the prosumer’s settlements with the trading company for the electricity fed into the grid and drawn from the grid at times when the micro-installation is not generating it.
Settlement of energy surpluses under the net-metering system
Furthermore, due to the lack of a clear method for settling surplus energy under the net-metering system, the drafters propose amending Article 4c(9) of the RES Act.
According to the provision contained in the draft, in the event of a change to the settlement system for energy fed into the grid, the value of electricity generated and not consumed by a renewable energy prosumer or a collective renewable energy prosumer who utilised net-metering settlement will be added to the prosumer’s account. The value of this energy will be determined on the basis of the average monthly market price applicable for the month preceding the month in which the prosumer ceases to be settled under the net-metering system.
Corrections to metering data
The proposed amendments to the Act also provide for the possibility of correcting measurement data in connection with RCE price settlement for a further 12 months following the settlement month. It is proposed to change the threshold for such adjustments from 0.1% to 2%, with the aim of reducing the number of necessary adjustments to settlements and lowering the costs of settling accounts for prosumers operating under the net-billing system.
She specializes in civil, commercial and business law. In the corporate and energy department, her activities are mainly based on providing corporate services to companies, reviewing and preparing commercial contracts, drafting litigation and non-litigation pleadings and preparing analyses and legal opinions, particularly in the sphere of business law and energy law. She also has professional experience in administrative and civil proceedings, which she gained in Warsaw law firms. She supports the Firm's…
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