Abstract
In the article, the authors present the specificity of the Polish retail electricity market, shaped to a considerable extent by the provisions of European Union law. The main feature of this market is granting special legal protection to individual final customers (referred to by the legislator as “household customers”) who have obtained the status of consumers in the Polish legal system. The essence of the study is not only to analyze the subjective and quantitative aspects of this market, but, above all, to analyze the civil law measures protecting these electricity consumers. These aspects constitute a unique legal structure, which is a continuation of the administrative proceedings before the President of the Energy Regulatory Office (regulatory entity). The Court of Competition and Consumer Protection (hereinafter referred to as the Court of Protection) is a specialized civil court that hears appeals against decisions of the regulatory entity, the subjects of which are actions or omissions of professional participants of the retail electricity market, which infringe the collective interests of consumers (“household customers”) as individual final customer on this market.
Highlights
In Poland, the electricity market, as in other European Union Member States, operates on two levels
The second level is the retail market, where energy producers offer individual customers energy supplies, competing on price, delivery terms, and additional services [1]. Both these markets must be shaped in accordance with the priorities of the state’s energy policy, which include: (1) security of energy supplies, i.e., ensuring conditions enabling the coverage of the current and future demand of the economy and society for energy of an appropriate type and required quality; (2) socially justified energy prices, i.e., establishing an energy price policy, in which the price would result from competitive market mechanisms or from regulations of an independent, apolitical state authority excluded from ministerial structures in order to balance the interests of energy consumers and suppliers; (3) compliance with the requirements of environmental protection in the conditions of market economy
Due to this special status of final household customers, attention should be paid to the consumer rights they have been granted in the retail electricity market
Summary
In Poland, the electricity market, as in other European Union Member States, operates on two levels. The second level is the retail market, where energy producers offer individual customers energy supplies, competing on price, delivery terms, and additional services [1] Both these markets must be shaped in accordance with the priorities of the state’s energy policy, which include: (1) security of energy supplies, i.e., ensuring conditions enabling the coverage of the current and future demand of the economy and society for energy of an appropriate type and required quality; (2) socially justified energy prices, i.e., establishing an energy price policy, in which the price would result from competitive market mechanisms or from regulations of an independent, apolitical state authority excluded from ministerial structures in order to balance the interests of energy consumers and suppliers; (3) compliance with the requirements of environmental protection in the conditions of market economy. Within the framework of these considerations, it is necessary to focus on the group of entities of the retail energy market, which are final customers, and more precisely, a subcategory of final customers, household customers as entities that are granted consumer protection within the meaning of the European Union law
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