Poland imports electricity due to high prices of Polish energy - daily

During the first five months of this year, Polish energy imports were 39 percent higher than a year ago, despite a drop in demand, reports Tuesday's edition of the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (DGP) daily.

DGP wrote that imports comprised 8.4 percent and amounted to 68,100 GWh of domestic energy consumption during the first five months of this year.

According to the state owned transmission system operator Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne (PSE), it amounted to 5,700 GWh, as compared to 4,100 GWh in the same period of 2019, and represented an increase of 39 percent. Already in 2019, almost twice as much energy was imported by Poland than a year earlier, wrote GDP.

The newspaper reported that the most energy, from January to May, was imported from Sweden (1,507 GWh) and Germany (1,337 GWh). Interestingly, imports from the Czech Republic more than doubled compared to last year (to 1,072 GWh). Poland also imported electricity from Lithuania (1,023 GWh), Ukraine (663 GWh) and Slovakia (166 GWh).

"We have an open market in the European Union and if the transmission capacity of cross-border connections allow for it, then there are no obstacles to buying energy abroad," Marek Dolatowski from the Wardynski and Partners law office, told DGP.

The expert explained that energy is more expensive in Poland than on many European markets as a result of the costs of CO2 emission permits which Poland incurs, due to the large share of energy produced from coal.