President’s duties

The President of the Energy Regulatory Office is the central body of state administration nominated on the basis of an act of 10 April 1997 Energy Law, for the realization of tasks in the scope of fuel and energy management control as well as promotion of competition.

The duties and competence of the ERO President are strictly connected with the state policy in terms of energy, i.e. economic conditions of energy enterprises operations, ideas of market operations, as well as requirements coming from the obligation of adjusting Polish law to the European Union law. The activities undertaken by independent regulatory body are addressed at fulfilling the aim given by the legislator, and heading towards the creation of balanced economic growth of the country, ensuring energy security, economical and rational use of fuels and energy, development of competition, fighting with negative effects of natural monopoles, taking into consideration environmental protection, obligations resulting from international agreements as well as balancing the interests of energy enterprises and consumers of fuels and energy.

In the space of several years of activities of the ERO President, the Energy law has been amended many times. As a consequence of the amendments, the scope of activities of the ERO President has been extended from year to year.

Currently the competence of the ERO President resulting from art 23 point 2 of the Energy Law cover the following activities:

1. granting and withdrawing licenses,
2. approving and controlling of tariff applications for gaseous fuels, electricity and heat, including analyzing and verifying costs adapted by the energy enterprises as justified to calculate prices fees in their tariffs,
3. establishing:
   1. correcting factors stipulating projected efficiency improvement in energy enterprises operations as well as changing the conditions of performing a certain economic activity by the particular enterprise;
   2. period of the tariff being in force and correcting factors;
   3. justified amount of return on the capital, for energy enterprises submitting tariffs to be accepted;
   4. maximum share of fixed fees in combined fees for providing the transmission or distribution services for particular groups of customers in tariffs for gaseous fuels and energy, in cases where protection of customer interests is required;
   5. individual substitutive fees in relation to the obligatory purchase of electric energy from co-generation,
4. controlling the fulfilment of duties in the scope of electricity purchase from renewable sources of energy and co-generation,
5. coordination of projects connected with the energy enterprises development plans,
6. determining operators for transmission and distribution systems, systems of storing gaseous fuels, systems for liquefying natural gas or operators of the combined system,
7. granting and revoking exemption from the obligation to provide transmission services or fuel gas and energy distribution, storing of gaseous fuels, gaseous fuel transport services as well as services based on liquefying gas and re-gasification,
8. approving transmission network codes in the scope of balancing the system and congestions system management ,
9. organizing and carrying out tenders concerning:
   1. choosing the default supplier;
   2. building new production power for electricity and the realization of ventures leading to lowering the consumption of electricity,
10. controlling the quality standards of customer service and controlling, on the request of the customer, the quality parameters for gaseous fuels and electric energy,
11. controlling the realization of obligations resulting from the regulations of the European Parliament and Council ordinance nr 1228/2003/WE as of 26 June 2003 concerning the conditions of the grid access in respect to trans-border exchange of electric energy (Dz. Urz. WE L 176 z 15.07.2003 r.),
12. controlling the realization of obligations resulting from the regulations of the European Parliament and Council ordinance nr 1775/2005/WE as of 28 September 2005 concerning the conditions of grid access for natural gas transmission (Dz. Urz. UE L 289 z 3.11.2005 r.),
13. resolving disputes concerning the refusal of concluding an agreement to access the grid, selling agreement, agreement for transmission services or distribution of fuels and energy, agreement for natural gas transport services, agreement for gaseous fuels storing services, agreement for accessibility to partial installation for storing gaseous fuels, agreement for liquefying natural gas services, as well as license agreement, and in cases of unjustified shortage of gaseous fuels or energy supply,
14. imposing fines according to the rules set forth in the Act,
15. cooperating with proper executive powers in counteracting energy enterprises practices which limit competition,
16. setting forth methods of controlling and undertaking actions to improve effectiveness of energy enterprises,
17. determining and publication of rates and price rates important for the process of tariff creation,
18. publication of information serving more effective use of fuels and energy,
19. collecting and processing information relating to energy enterprises, including calculating and publishing in the period up to 31 March every year:
    • average price of sales for electricity produced in highly-efficient co-generation;
    • average price of sales for electricity on the competitive market in previous calendar year,
20. gathering information concerning investment projects being in the scope of interest of European Union and passing them on to the European Commission, no later than 15 April every year, and passing on information to the European Commission concerning import of electricity from countries not being members of the European Union,
21. monitoring the operations of gas and power systems,
22. issuing certificates of origin for electricity, which comes from renewable sources of energy and certificates of origin from co-generation as well as their discontinuation,

Full list of tasks realized by the ERO President cover not only competence resulting from Article 23 act 2 Energy Law , but also competence stipulated in other separate acts:

1. act as of 25 August 2006 concerning bio-components and liquid bio-fuels act as of 16 February 2007 concerning stocks of crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas, the principles of proceeding in circumstances of a threat to the fuel security of the State and disruption on the petroleum market
2. act as of 29 June 2007 concerning the principles of covering costs faced by generators related with early termination of long-term capacity and power purchase agreements
3. act as of 29 January 2004 concerning public tender law
4. act as of 29 June 1995 concerning public statistics