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Poland's reformed balancing market has been active since June 2024; the 22 months of data now show a positive signal for BESS, large spreads, and a deepening market.

Like other balancing markets, it settles the difference between what participants contracted in the wholesale market and what they actually produced or consumed. The imbalance settlement price (CEN, Cena Energii Niezbilansowania) is the rate used to settle that difference.

Unlike other European balancing markets, Poland runs a central dispatch. Batteries don't trade against the imbalance price as they do in GB. They submit offers into PSE's integrated scheduling process (ZPG), and PSE decides when they charge and discharge. Revenue depends on how the offer is structured and whether PSE activates it.

This article unpacks where CEN prices cluster, why midday turns negative, how TB4 compares to day-ahead, and what it means for Poland's merchant revenue stack. As in GB and Germany, ancillary service revenues will saturate, and a liquid, deep balancing market is key to future revenue security.

Key takeaways

• Balancing market TB4 spreads averaged PLN 695/MWh since January 2025, wider than Poland's day-ahead equivalent of PLN 654/MWh. In April 2026, TB4 surged to PLN 1,041/MWh as spring solar oversupply intensified.
• The balancing market has recorded 798 hour-equivalents of negative imbalance prices since January 2025, concentrated in spring and summer midday hours when solar generation peaks.
• At midday, 24% of settlement periods had negative CEN. By 20:00, only 0.3% were negative and the median reached 639 PLN/MWh.

Poland’s balancing market utilises central dispatch

PSE activates balancing energy in real time to close the gap between scheduled and actual generation. Since 14 June 2024, imbalances have been settled in 15-minute intervals. The imbalance settlement price (CEN, Cena Energii Niezbilansowania) is what balancing responsible parties (BRPs) pay or receive for deviating from scheduled generation.

Two features shape how this market behaves.

• First, Poland runs a central dispatch model. Unlike GB or Germany, where generators self-dispatch, and the TSO resolves real-time imbalance, PSE decides when each unit runs through an integrated scheduling process (ZPG). Batteries register as storage scheduling units (JG_M) and submit offers that PSE selects in merit order.
• Second, the June 2024 reform introduced single-price imbalance settlement. Every BRP in a given 15-minute period settles at the same CEN, whether long or short. When the system is short, CEN clears at the higher of the day-ahead price and the balancing market price. When long, it clears at the lower. This rewards passive balancing, deviating in the direction that helps the system, and turns CEN into a price signal worth targeting rather than a flat penalty.

To participate, every market participant is either a Balancing Responsible Party (BRP) or appoints one. To actively provide balancing energy, a separate certification as a balancing service provider (BSP) is required. BESS developers typically contract with a trading house that holds both roles, handling prequalification, scheduling and offer optimisation.

The periods when PSE needs flexibility most, midday surplus and evening tightness, are the same periods that produce the widest CEN spreads. A well-structured offer positions the battery to be dispatched at those high-value times.

42% of prices cluster in one band, but the tails are where BESS earns

The CEN histogram shows a concentrated core. 42% of all settlement periods fell in the 400-600 PLN/MWh range.

However, outside the modal bins, the distribution has pronounced tails in both directions. Thousands of periods recorded negative CEN, and hundreds exceeded 1,000 PLN/MWh.

Negative prices occur when midday solar combines with must-run coal and cogeneration to exceed demand. Coal floors and heat obligations prevent further ramp-down, and CEN turns negative once PSE exhausts downward regulation.

Spikes above 1,000 PLN/MWh reflect the opposite: evening ramps or unplanned outages leave PSE short of fast-response capacity, and the marginal cost of balancing surges.

Why does Poland's balancing market go negative at midday?

The hourly CEN profile reveals a repeatable daily cycle. At 12:00, 24% of periods are oversupplied, compared to only 0.3% at 20:00.