Issue of balancing incentives for Polish market participants analysed by grid operator

"The issue of balancing incentives for market participants is subject to thorough analyses by the grid operators - not only in Poland, but in every EU country," he wrote.

"European operators monitor the quality of these incentives, taking measures aimed, on the one hand, at improving the quality of planning and minimising the imbalance of a given system and, on the other hand, at increasing the availability of fast balancing capacities capable of levelling the imbalance of the system in real time," he added.

He wrote that given the expected further increase in the share of weather-dependent generation, the strength of price signals determining the quality of balancing on the part of market participants is of fundamental importance for the security and stability of power system operation.

Purchala believes that in Poland, the quality of price signals in the balancing market has significantly improved following the reform of the market rules implemented from June 14, 2024.

"The quality of balancing is also gradually improving, nevertheless it still leaves a lot to be desired. Balancing market prices and imbalance charges (unscheduled off-take or generation) are much less penalising in Poland than in the cited foreign markets, so that incentives to improve planning are very often insufficient," he wrote.

He writes that it is possible to observe a systemic, very high under-contracting of the system during the evening peak hours and systemic overcontracting of the system during peak hours of photovoltaic generation.

"Moreover, there are days when the volume of imbalance that the grid operator is forced to deal with exceeds for some hours 2-3 thousand MW, which is more than the volume of capacity reserves contracted by the grid operator. This is a very worrying phenomenon that threatens the security of operation of the national power grid," he wrote.

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