{"id":547,"date":"2026-08-07T09:34:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/?p=547"},"modified":"2026-08-07T10:41:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:41:01","slug":"poland-now-charges-no-connection-advance-on-a-storage-retrofit-provided-capacity-stays-flat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/2026\/08\/07\/poland-now-charges-no-connection-advance-on-a-storage-retrofit-provided-capacity-stays-flat\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland now charges no connection advance on a storage retrofit, provided capacity stays flat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In April 2026, Polish day-ahead prices went below zero for 92 hours, the floor reached minus 900 PLN\/MWh, and the monthly Market Price of Energy (Rynkowa Cena Energii elektrycznej<\/em>, RCE) reference settled at 132.92 PLN\/MWh, the lowest figure since that index has been published. In the same month, Zelestra and EDP signed the first Spanish PPA hybridising an operating solar plant with battery storage. Poland extended the cable pooling formula to storage on 30 April, and where connection capacity stays unchanged, the retrofit now carries no connection advance at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

For a fund underwriting a Polish photovoltaic farm (PV) portfolio, those two facts sit on opposite sides of one model. Capture price is being compressed faster than most 2024 base cases assumed, while the instrument that answers it just became close to free at the formal level. What follows is the arithmetic on a 50 MW asset, the five documents your DSO reads before anything else, the antitrust proceeding your risk committee should have on file, and the two dates already running against existing connection agreements.<\/p>\n\n

Reading the Zelestra and EDP deal correctly<\/h2>\n\n

On 7 April 2026, Zelestra and EDP signed Spain’s first power purchase agreement covering the hybridisation of an operating solar plant with battery storage. Zelestra will develop a 160 MWh BESS alongside the 50 MW Pizarroso plant in C\u00e1ceres, which has been generating since 2023. EDP was already the offtaker on that plant and extended its existing position to cover the flexibility the battery adds. The two had done the greenfield version first, signing Spain’s first combined solar and storage PPA in July 2025, covering 170 MW of solar and 400 MWh of storage at Trujillo in Extremadura.<\/p>\n\n

The agreement is signed. The battery is not built. That sequence is the part worth carrying into a Polish diligence file, because it shows the offtaker pricing flexibility on an asset already in operation, before any capital went into the ground. Polish conversations still tend to stall one step earlier, on whether the distribution operator will process the change at all.<\/p>\n\n

The cable pooling formula in Poland is older than UC84<\/h2>\n\n

This distinction gets misstated often enough that it is worth being precise, because it changes which assets in a portfolio are actually newly eligible.<\/p>\n\n

The cable pooling formula entered Polish law on 1 October 2023, under the Act of 17 August 2023, and it covered renewable installations only. A battery that was not part of the installation itself could not share the connection point. The UC84 amendment, formally the Act of 13 March 2026 and in force since 30 April 2026, rewrote article 7(1f) of the Energy Law to cover storage facilities and generating installations of any technology. A wind and solar hybrid sharing one connection point has therefore been lawful in Poland for close to three years. A battery on that same connection point has been lawful for three months.<\/p>\n\n

The arithmetic on a 50 MW asset<\/h2>\n\n
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Where UC84 removes cost, and where it adds it<\/h3>\n

An applicant seeking connection conditions for a further installation or a storage facility at a connection point that already holds connection conditions, a signed connection agreement or a completed connection pays no advance<\/strong>, provided the existing connection capacity is not increased. The standard advance under UC84 is 60 PLN per kW, capped at 6 million PLN, doubled from the previous rate. Financial security for performance of the connection agreement runs at 30 PLN per kW up to 100 MW and 60 PLN per kW above that, capped at 12 million PLN, and where the applicant already holds the capacity, security is calculated on the increment only.<\/p>\n

On a 50 MW plant taking a battery that fits inside the existing connection capacity, that means zero advance instead of 3 million PLN and zero security instead of 1.5 million PLN. The application fee remains payable at 1 PLN per kW, so 50 thousand PLN here against a statutory ceiling of 100 thousand PLN.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

A second provision rarely shows up in retrofit models and it should. Article 33a of the Energy Law allows a company to store electricity, participate in the balancing market and provide system services from the day energy is first exported, without holding a licence yet, for up to twelve months with a single extension of six. The schedule stops depending on the regulator’s queue. The conditions are a connection agreement signed before that activity starts and a notification to the President of URE within 30 days of first export. Energy produced in that window sits outside the Renewable Energy Source (RES) support schemes and cannot receive guarantees of origin, which matters if the model assumes either.<\/p>\n\n

What UOKiK is asking the operator about, and why it belongs in your risk file?<\/h2>\n\n

The President of UOKiK, the Polish competition authority, has opened an explanatory proceeding into the operator over how renewable installations and storage facilities are redispatched. Generators complained that their assets were curtailed more often than others without adequate justification. The authority is examining whether curtailment instructions were issued transparently, proportionately and without discrimination between undertakings. An antitrust decision can reach 10 percent of turnover.<\/p>\n\n

Two things follow for a fund. Non-market redispatch volumes in a Polish base case carry regulatory uncertainty in both directions, so a flat curtailment assumption is doing more work than it looks. And an owner who wants to rely on that proceeding needs SCADA system evidence preserved to an engineering standard now, because reconstructing curtailment events after the fact from settlement data alone is a much weaker position.<\/p>\n\n

Five documents the operator reads before anything else<\/h2>\n\n

The commercial case can be sound and the file can still sit for two quarters. What the operator’s technical department reviews is a different set of material from what the investment committee approved.<\/p>\n\n

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1. Power limitation scheme at the connection point<\/h3>\n

Hardware and software evidence that combined export from PV and storage cannot exceed the connection capacity, with documented response time, settings and priority logic agreed with the operator. Without it the application comes back with a question about node loading, and that correspondence runs in quarters.<\/p>\n\n

2. Separated metering<\/h3>\n

Dedicated settlement metering for PV generation, dedicated metering for the storage facility, and a balancing meter at the delivery point. Losses on grid charging cannot be settled without it, and the offtaker has no way to evidence the origin of the evening megawatt hour it is contracting for.<\/p>\n\n

3. Current Operational Cooperation Instruction<\/h3>\n

National grid codes for DSO (IRiESD) and TSO (IRiESP), the distribution and transmission network operating instructions, belong to the operators and are approved by the President of URE, so a generator does not amend them. The document that belongs to the owner is the Instrukcja Wsp\u00f3\u0142pracy Ruchowej, the operational cooperation instruction agreed directly with the operator. It has to describe plant behaviour during network disturbances, the curtailment hierarchy, and how the battery responds to dispatch instructions and to redispatch. This is the item that most often comes back for revision.<\/p>\n\n

4. The NC RfG route for a new unit<\/h3>\n

The battery enters the process as a separate module and needs energisation operational notification (EON), interim operational notification (ION), then final operational notification (FON) after compliance testing and power quality measurement. That code regime runs in parallel with the building law and its own occupancy permit. Lenders check both routes and ask about them separately.<\/p>\n\n

5. Compliance report for a non-synchronous unit<\/h3>\n

The document that closes the technical part of diligence and lets a lender decide without opening its own investigation. For battery storage and hybrid configurations this is a standalone piece of work, built on measurement data against Grid Codes: NC RfG, NC ER and IRiESP requirements.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Where we tell funds to walk away<\/h2>\n\n

Not every asset qualifies and the cheapest place to find that out is week one, before a battery supplier is engaged. A retrofit works when the connection capacity leaves headroom above the aggregate active power of the inverters, or when the owner accepts operation under a combined export limit, and when the substation and switchgear have room for another bay. We advise against it in four situations: the transformer is running at the edge of its rating and replacing it consumes the entire saving on the avoided advance; short circuit calculations show that adding a source exceeds the withstand rating of the installed switchgear; easements and plot boundaries prevent siting containers within reach of the existing arrangement; or the connection agreement has an unresolved security position and the expiry risk has to be cleared first.<\/p>\n\n

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Two dates already running against existing connection agreements<\/h3>\n

Where a connection agreement sets a connection date later than three years from 30 April 2026, the law requires security equal to one quarter of the amount to be posted within six months of the amendment taking effect, meaning by 30 October 2026<\/strong>, failing which the agreement expires by operation of law. Separately, a connection agreement expires by operation of law if the operator is not notified of a final building permit within 24 months of signature for PV and battery storage, or 36 months for wind, biogas and for transformer and switchgear works.<\/p>\n

The transitional provisions protecting the most advanced projects were given their own six-month vacatio legis and take effect on 15 October 2026<\/strong>. On 31 July 2026 the Sejm passed a corrective amendment replacing the ambiguous cross references with specific dates, by 250 votes to none with 192 abstentions. It still needs the Senate and the President’s signature, so until publication the operators are working to their own readings, several of them applying shorter effective deadlines than the transitional provisions were drafted to give. Each of those divergences is currently settled in correspondence on one individual agreement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

Why GridLink?<\/h2>\n\n

Under Cable Pooling Optimizer<\/strong> we work through the existing substation, the line bay and the export arrangement, run short circuit calculations to IEC 60909, and assess whether the installed switchgear withstands the addition of a source. On that basis we prepare a connection topology recommendation for your designer, in the variant that makes the most of the plant already in place. Documentation and dealings with the operator are handled on the owner’s side as advisory engineer, and the design decision stays with your designer.<\/p>\n\n

Under UC84 Rescue Package<\/strong> we take the administrative and technical process: the application for connection conditions for storage at the existing connection point, agreement of the power limitation logic and settings with the operator, the update to the operational cooperation instruction, the commissioning programme and the EON, ION and FON route. The pack is assembled in the form a lender expects, so that the technical part of diligence does not reopen. Our work is analytical and review work on the owner’s side. We do not replace the designer, we do not act as EPC contractor, and we recommend arrangements that operators have accepted before.<\/p>\n\n

Engineering is led by dr in\u017c. Micha\u0142 Gajdzica<\/strong>, co-founder of GridLink and a university lecturer. The team has more than 800 MVA<\/strong> connected to the Polish operator’s grid, across generating modules of types A through D.<\/p>\n\n

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Four things worth pulling from the data room before you contact anyone:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • the connection capacity on each asset and how much of it sits above the aggregate active power of the inverters,<\/li>\n
  • the connection date in each connection agreement, and whether it falls after 30 April 2029,<\/li>\n
  • whether the substation has a free bay, and the short circuit withstand rating of the installed switchgear,<\/li>\n
  • whether a current operational cooperation instruction is agreed with the operator.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Any conversation, and any project data, documentation or SCADA system export shared with us, sits under an NDA signed before anything changes hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

    \n

    Book a 20-minute call with a GridLink engineer. We go through the connection capacity, the single line diagram, the connection date in the agreement and the last twelve months of generation data, and you get a clear answer on whether that asset qualifies for a storage retrofit inside its existing connection point.<\/p>\n

    Holding assets with connection dates after 30 April 2029? Security equal to one quarter of the amount has to be posted by 30 October 2026 or the connection agreement expires by operation of law. Send us the connection conditions and generation data for one asset under NDA and we will come back within ten working days on whether a retrofit stands up on that connection point.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In April 2026, Polish day-ahead prices went below zero for 92 hours, the floor reached minus 900 PLN\/MWh, and the monthly Market Price of Energy (Rynkowa Cena Energii elektrycznej, RCE) reference settled at 132.92 PLN\/MWh, the lowest figure since that index has been published. In the same month, Zelestra and EDP signed the first Spanish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,25,2,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bess","category-articles-in-english","category-audyty-przylaczen","category-cable-pooling","category-rynek-oze"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}