State aid: Commission approves €5billion Polish support for cogenerated electricity and surcharge reductions for large energy consumers

By District Energy posted 04-15-2019 00:00

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Press Release, European Commission

Summary

State aid: Commission approves €5billion Polish support for cogenerated electricity and surcharge reductions for large energy consumers; opens in-depth investigation into reductions in capacity mechanism surcharge

The European Commission has approved under EU State aid rules (1) a Polish scheme to support high-efficiency cogeneration and (2) reduced surcharges to finance the scheme for energy-intensive users. It also (3) opened an investigation into reduced surcharges to finance Poland's capacity mechanism.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "The Polish support scheme approved today will provide an important contribution to EU environmental and climate goals without unduly distorting competition. We have also approved Polish plans to preserve the competitiveness of energy-intensive companies in Poland by reducing their contributions to the financing of the electricity cogeneration support. But we still need to assess if the reductions for certain users on the surcharge that finances the Polish capacity mechanism are in line with our State aid rules".

(1) Support for high-efficiency cogeneration

The scheme will support combined heat and power ("CHP") installations connected to district heating networks in Poland. The scheme, with an annual budget of €500 million, will run until 31 December 2028. The support will be granted to new and refurbished highly efficient CHP installations, as well as to existing gas-fired highly efficient CHP installations. It will be also open to generators in other Member States.