Which photovoltaic billing system to opt for? Changes from 1 July 2024
From 1 July 2024, the billing rules for owners of domestic solar PV installations will change. New prosumers, i.e. those whose installation comes online after 1 July, will be put on the new model - average hourly price. Existing ones, will have the choice of whether they want to change to the current billing model.
What will change?
Photovoltaic installations that were installed before 1 April 2022 will not be affected by the changes. Those billed under 'net-metering' will not have to switch to another billing system. These prosumers will still be able to feed surplus energy produced into the grid free of charge and then take 70-80% of that energy back free of charge at any time over a 12-month period.
Those prosumers who chose to install after 1 April 2022 are currently net-billed. They sell surpluses to the grid at market prices and buy the missing energy at rates like any other consumer. The selling price of the surplus is the monthly price quoted by PSE after the end of the month. In fact, it is the monthly average of the spot exchange prices (Day-Ahead Market) weighted by the volume of electricity that has been fed into the grid by all PV installations in Poland. This means that prosumers are billed at a single rate for the entire month. This is a rate that takes into account the fact that most photovoltaic energy is fed into the grid during the day, when selling prices are lowest.
From 1 July 2024, the RCEm rate (Re-purchase price from prosumers for photovoltaic energy) is to be replaced by billing energy injected into the grid directly through hourly prices. An incentive for the change will be the possibility of an increase in the value of the prosumer's unused refund for the electricity injected into the grid over the following 12 months - up to 30%.
A more significant change for all net-billing prosumers is the increase in the price at which they 'sell' their surplus energy by 23%. The government is thus partially compensating them for the VAT they have to pay when buying energy from the grid. However, this is only a partial compensation, as VAT is paid both on the energy itself and on the distribution costs. The average prosumer can gain around PLN 300 per year from this change.
What do the forthcoming changes mean?
What does this look like in reality? In principle, not much changes. The hourly rates as well as the monthly rates are based on the same spot prices on the Polish exchange. The difference is that the monthly RCEm price is already averaged beforehand based on the energy supplied to the grid by all PV installations in the country, while the RCE price will be averaged on a monthly basis according to the amount of energy we ourselves feed into the grid at specific times. In the latter case, we have more influence on the outcome.
Hourly rates can be beneficial mainly for those prosumers whose PV installations generate more energy during higher prices, i.e. in the morning and evening. This applies to east- and west-facing installations. They will also benefit those who are able to use a large part of their production at midday, when energy is cheapest, and less in the morning and evening. For prosumers who consume almost all of the energy produced on an ongoing basis, the difference between RCEm and RCE will not be significant, as they return small amounts of energy to the grid.
Summary
Prosumers billing on a monthly and hourly basis should take into account the fact that energy prices on the Polish power exchange are getting lower in times of high photovoltaic power production. The way to reduce losses is to maximise self-consumption. A good solution is to invest in energy storage, which allows excess energy production to be stored and used in periods of low production.
