Polish Revenue Stack

Overview of revenue streams available to battery storage in the Polish market

Available Markets

This page describes the revenue streams included in the current Poland Dispatch Model release. It is a description of model scope, not of the Polish market as a whole.

The model covers day-ahead energy, TGE 15-minute continuous intraday, and four balancing products: FCR capacity and aFRR capacity, both procured by PSE, the Polish transmission system operator; mFRR capacity, also procured by PSE; and activated aFRR energy, settled through the European PICASSO platform.

Poland also operates a capacity market, intraday auctions, and an mFRR energy leg. These exist and are active, but are not modelled in this release. The reasoning for each is set out under “Markets not modelled in this release” on this page.

This release publishes Central, Low, and High. The scenario adjustments are on the Scenarios page.

Energy Markets

Poland’s day-ahead market cleared in hourly products until 30 September 2025 and in 15-minute products from 1 October 2025. The model always solves at 15 minutes and follows that product: constant megawatts across each hour before the change, then a free quarter-hour from 1 October 2025. This release also includes TGE 15-minute continuous trading, depth-capped. TGE scheduled intraday auctions exist and are active, but are not modelled.

Ancillary Services

FCR stands for Frequency Containment Reserve, aFRR for automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve, and mFRR for manual Frequency Restoration Reserve. Capacity products are procured in hourly blocks by PSE.

Day-ahead Market

The day-ahead market is the wholesale market where most energy is traded. Key characteristics:

• Settlement granularity – hourly products through 30 September 2025, 15-minute products from 1 October 2025. The model solves at 15 minutes throughout.
• Single clearing – the market clears once per day for all delivery periods
• Pay-as-cleared – all accepted bids receive the marginal clearing price

Batteries participate by charging during low-price periods and discharging during high-price periods, capturing the spread. Polish day-ahead spreads have been widened by rapid solar build-out, which pushes midday prices down and creates a larger daily arbitrage opportunity for storage.

TGE 15-minute continuous

This release includes TGE 15-minute continuous trading, live since 14 June 2024. Dispatch is depth-capped so a single battery cannot take more than its share of the traded volume in each slot.

• Backtest prices are TGE volume-weighted average prices. Slots with no trade take the day-ahead price and a zero volume ceiling, so they cannot be repositioned into.
• Forecast prices come from the Europe production-cost model’s Polish intraday series, retuned against TGE continuous prints.
• Depth is anchored at 28.5 MW, measured in 2026, and held at that level until 2027, the first forecast year.

Depth then grows as more wind and solar from independent power producers connects. PSE is tightening how renewables balance their positions, which pushes more of that rebalancing into continuous trading. Batteries themselves add counterparties.

The forecast treats a 50 MW battery as a marginal trader. It takes a small share of each slot in a market that other batteries and generators are also trading. In the early years the depth cap rarely binds, because batteries allocate most of their capacity to ancillary services. As reserve markets saturate and depth grows, continuous-market revenue climbs through the early 2030s, then levels off.

Frequency Response Services

Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR)

FCR is the fastest-responding frequency service, activated automatically when grid frequency deviates from its target:

• Asymmetric provision – upward and downward capacity are qualified, procured, and priced independently, so a battery can offer different volumes in each direction
• Capacity payment only – FCR pays an availability fee; there is no separate energy payment for the small volumes moved while regulating
• Hourly blocks – capacity is contracted in hourly windows, procured the day before delivery
• Limited-energy rule – a battery must keep enough stored energy to sustain its committed response for a short defined window in each direction

Polish FCR differs from Germany’s, where FCR is a single symmetric product contracted in four-hour blocks. In Poland the two directions are separate products, and no derating is applied to the offered volume.

Automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR)

aFRR is secondary frequency control that restores frequency after FCR has acted:

• Asymmetric products – separate upward and downward capacity
• Hourly blocks – capacity contracted the day before delivery
• Pay-as-cleared – capacity payments set at the marginal clearing price published by PSE

Manual Frequency Restoration Reserve (mFRR)

PSE procures mFRR as an asymmetric hourly capacity product. Batteries can participate. This release includes the capacity payment only.

• From 14 June 2024 – the first date PSE published mFRR capacity prices on the cmbp-tp feed
• Two-hour energy obligation – a unit holding mFRR up must keep enough stored energy to deliver its day’s maximum accepted megawatts for two hours
• No energy leg – activated mFRR energy is not modelled, because PSE does not publish a dedicated activation series

aFRR Energy Activation (PICASSO)

When aFRR capacity is called upon, energy payments are made separately through the PICASSO platform for cross-border aFRR energy exchange:

• Available from 11 July 2025 – aFRR energy revenues enter the model from the PICASSO go-live date and are zero before it
• 15-minute settlement – activated energy settled at quarter-hour resolution
• Directional delivery – upward activation discharges the battery, downward activation charges it
• Capped at the reserved band – activated energy cannot exceed the aFRR capacity sold in that direction, scaled by the typical call rate. A battery that sold no aFRR in a period earns no aFRR energy.

Currency

Model outputs are computed in Polish złoty (PLN). Published dashboards and client materials typically present revenues in euros per megawatt per year, using a fixed PLN-to-euro conversion for comparison against other European markets.

Markets not modelled in this release

The following revenue streams exist in the Polish market but are not included in the current model. Each is planned for a future methodology version.

• Capacity market: Poland’s capacity market is live, and batteries hold capacity agreements in it. It is excluded from this model release because contracted revenue is asset-specific, depends on the delivery year in which the agreement was won, and is subject to de-rating factors that have changed sharply between auctions.
• Intraday auctions: TGE runs scheduled auctions, and they are active. They are not modelled in this release.
• mFRR energy: PSE procures and activates manual Frequency Restoration Reserve. Capacity payments are in this release. The energy leg is excluded because reliable activation data is not published. To be added when that data is available.

Related Pages

• Dispatch Model – How the model optimises across these revenue streams
• Capacity Expansion Model – Projected buildout across Europe