{"id":593,"date":"2026-09-17T01:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/?p=593"},"modified":"2026-09-07T10:37:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T10:37:50","slug":"polands-industrial-consumer-status-what-changed-before-the-15-november-2026-filing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.gridlink.pl\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/polands-industrial-consumer-status-what-changed-before-the-15-november-2026-filing\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland’s Industrial Consumer Status: What Changed Before the 15 November 2026 Filing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two things have changed for the filing your Polish plant makes this November. The capacity fee<\/strong> (op\u0142ata mocowa) now counts toward the electricity cost figure in the Ei coefficient, after a transitional rule that had carved it out of the 2026 filing only. And the third reference year is 2026<\/strong>, a year still open, so the fourth quarter has to be estimated and defended to a Polish statutory auditor.<\/p>

The deadline is 15 November 2026<\/strong> (Article 52 ust. 3 of the Polish renewable energy act). No in-year correction route exists once it passes. Miss it and the plant pays the full RES (OZE) fee and the full cogeneration fee for all of 2027.<\/p> <\/div>\n

What the status is worth, in z\u0142oty<\/h2>\n

At the 2026 rates of 7.30 PLN\/MWh for the OZE fee and 3.00 PLN\/MWh for the cogeneration fee, the status cuts the basis for both to 15% or 25% of volume. In the 15% group that is 8.755 PLN saved on every MWh purchased for own use. A plant buying 27,000 MWh a year pays 278,100 PLN without the status and 41,715 PLN with it. At 40,000 MWh the gap is 350,200 PLN. The certificate redemption obligation drops to the same basis on top of that, though its value tracks certificate prices. Rates for 2027 are not out yet. The proportion will not change.<\/p>\n

What actually sits in the Ei numerator<\/h2>\n

Ei is the ratio of electricity costs for own consumption to gross value added, both taken over the three years preceding the benefit year (\u00a7 2(1) of the Ministry of Climate and Environment regulation of 4 November 2025). Note the construction. One ratio of two three-year totals, not the average of three annual ratios. The two numbers diverge, and the second is what most in-house models compute.<\/p>\n

The word „costs” is where filings go wrong. Under \u00a7 2(2) the numerator also takes in distribution and transmission charges, the OZE fee paid, the cogeneration fee paid, the cost of meeting the certificate redemption obligation, and the capacity fee. On top of those sit notional costs: what the plant would have paid without the OZE and cogeneration reliefs, and the excise it would have paid without the exemptions under Articles 30(7a) and 31d(1) of the Polish excise act. A model built on the commodity invoice alone understates Ei and disqualifies a plant that clears the threshold.<\/p>\n

The capacity fee is new to this cycle specifically. Paragraph 7 excludes it from filings for the 2026 register only, and \u00a7 8 from reporting documents for 2025 and 2026. Nothing excludes it from the filing for 2027. A site that came out at 2.7% last year and dropped the matter can clear 3% now with nothing changed on the ground.<\/p>\n

The denominator is prescribed just as tightly. Gross value added is computed one way under the comparative profit-and-loss format, another under the cost-of-sales format, and a third under IFRS (\u00a7 2(6)), with all three excluding depreciation, wages and social security contributions from operating costs. Compensation under the Polish energy-intensive sectors scheme drops out of both sides (\u00a7 3).<\/p>\n

The third reference year has not finished<\/h2>\n

One of the reference years for a November 2026 filing is 2026. Paragraph 2(7) deals with this. Actual data is used, and for 1 October to 31 December, to the extent figures cannot yet be established, estimates based on the equivalent period in the two preceding years, adjusted for circumstances that changed how the business operated.<\/p>\n

For a group-owned site that is a scheduling problem first. The fourth quarter estimate goes into a document a Polish auditor signs, months before the group’s year-end close produces anything comparable. A change of supplier, a move between tariff groups, a new line or an outage during 2026 forces an adjustment to the baseline, and the adjustment has to be documented.<\/p>\n

The GBER test, as it applies to a group-owned plant<\/h2>\n

The third condition is that the plant must not be an undertaking in difficulty under Article 2(18) of the General Block Exemption Regulation (651\/2014). Foreign-owned sites treat this as a formality because the Polish company trades profitably, and the mechanism that catches them is narrower and more arithmetic than any general group-level doctrine.<\/p>\n

Article 2(18)(e) applies only to undertakings that are not SMEs. It bites where, over the preceding two years, the book debt-to-equity ratio exceeded 7.5 and the EBITDA interest coverage ratio was below 1.0. SME status is determined under Annex I to the GBER, which aggregates linked and partner enterprises. A Polish plant held by a large international group is therefore never an SME, whatever its own headcount, so criterion (e) is live for it. A site funded largely by intra-group loans can breach 7.5 while trading perfectly well. Criteria (a) and (b), on accumulated losses exceeding half of subscribed capital, apply regardless of size, and their three-year grace period is open only to SMEs.<\/p>\n

The registered PKD code is not the code the filing needs<\/h2>\n

Relief follows the PKD activity code, not the size of Ei. Article 53 ust. 1 gives codes in Article 52 ust. 6 pkt 1 lit. a a 15% basis and codes in lit. b a 25% basis, applied to electricity purchased for own use. The same split governs the OZE fee (Article 96 ust. 2) and the cogeneration fee (Article 62 ust. 2 of the cogeneration act), except that there the basis is electricity drawn from the grid and consumed in the settlement period. At 40,000 MWh the gap between the two lists is 41,200 PLN a year.<\/p>\n

A numbering trap sits underneath. The act lists codes under PKD 2007, while the KRS and CEIDG registers have carried PKD 2025 codes since last year. The President of URE requires the filing and the auditor’s opinion to state the PKD 2007 equivalent, translated through the official correspondence table. Any plant reclassified since the last filing starts here.<\/p>\n

What the filing commits the plant to afterwards<\/h2>\n

Two reporting duties follow. The annual information under Article 54 is due by 31 July of the year after the benefit year, so 31 July 2028 for a 2027 benefit. The conditionality report under Article 54b ust. 2 is due by 31 January of year n+2, so 31 January 2029.<\/p>\n

The conditionality obligation in Article 54a ust. 1 binds only industrial consumers also subject to the mandatory enterprise energy audit under Article 36(1) or (2) of the Polish energy efficiency act. Where it applies, Article 54a ust. 2 offers three routes. Efficiency measures from the most recent audit with a payback of three years or less. At least 30% of own consumption from sources avoiding greenhouse gas emissions. Or spending of at least 50% of the aid value on emission reduction below the applicable benchmark.<\/p>\n

Two provisions inside that article rarely reach the summaries. If the audit identifies no measures with a payback of three years or less, the obligation counts as discharged (Article 54a ust. 3). And the 30% route is evidenced only by guarantees of origin cancelled in the plant’s favour, or by generation in the plant’s own installation consumed on site (Article 54a ust. 4). A group-level renewable Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) does not evidence it. Where renewable sourcing is reported centrally, that is the most expensive misunderstanding in the provision.<\/p>\n

One correction is owed to anyone working from an older briefing note. Removal from the register with a five-year re-entry ban is the pre-14 December 2024 wording of Article 55. The current sanction is repayment of the entire public aid received together with interest (Article 55 ust. 1), plus a fine under Article 168 pkt 29. Repayment lands sooner.<\/p>\n

Why this falls between functions<\/h2>\n

The filing needs three inputs and no single function owns them. Finance can compute Ei, but only once someone says that distribution charges, the capacity fee and notional excise belong in the numerator. Legal is equipped to run the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) screen, though a Polish surcharge deadline seldom reaches a group legal calendar. Consumption data sits with the site, which holds no group balance sheet. Each part can be done correctly and the filing still fail, because assembling them into one document an auditor will sign was never written into anyone’s role.<\/p>\n

Five checks before the end of September<\/h3>