I'd like to welcome you during a press conference.
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Vice President of the Management Board for Asset Management. Vice President of the Management Board, Finance, Krzysztof Surma, and Vice President of the Management Board for Trading, Mr. Krzysztof Zawadzki. Our meeting traditionally will be divided into two parts. First, the presentation of the earnings, and then questions. Both those that you will ask in the room, as well as the ones that will be asked by our viewers watching our broadcast. I'd like to welcome them. I'd like to hand over to President of the Management Board, Grzegorz Lot.
Good morning.
It's been two years since we've been here with you together, so thank you for the two years on March 7. This university, we have a pleasure to present what happened in 2025. Two years ago, when we met and we spoke about the strategy or about the potential dividend. That's the first message that we, as the Management Board, are recommending the payout of dividend for 2025. The details will be provided by Krzysztof, and that's one of most major news that we delivered for 2025. Very good earnings. Probably you already became acquainted. If not, Krzysztof will be giving you the details. PLN 7.5 billion of EBITDA, PLN 3.3 billion in net profit. These are very good numbers. Almost PLN 6 billion of CapEx on investments, renewables, heat.
It's a year of very hard effort, a lot of hard work, but also very good results, very good outcome that the market sees and the customers see. We are very proud of that. In our strategy, we communicated that 20%, 30% of investment funds, investment outlays, will be acquiring from various sources. I'm proud to present here that almost 20% we already achieved. We are the market leader regarding the obtaining of funds, including the National Recovery Plan. The team that is taking on the challenges. We believe that thanks to that, we'll not only accelerate the transition that we planned, but also what we are doing steadfastly and, you know, in our renewable strategy is the strategic direction. Onshore, yes. The onshore, that's the main part of our investment plan.
We topped 1 GW this year, and this is the direction that we are steadfastly taking. We'll have a chance to present to you the projects that we've done and the ones that are being planned, and the ones we'll be implementing. Definitely, also behind the scenes, there are questions about SMRs. All those new technologies we'll present to you and we'll be ready to answer as part of a Q&A session. Better energy storage facilities, renewables and grid investments, all those things are important, but on one condition, that at the very end, there is a customer. As we said in the strategy, what's the core of the strategy? 6 million customers connected to the grid and everything we do takes into account the point of view of a customer. What we've done is, first of all, the quality of customer service improvement.
Of course, we are not perfect, but we are far from it. However, every day we are one day better, we get better. The example of that is an invoice that's been implemented without any regulations, without any pressure from the outside. Our people implemented and prepared it. It gave us at least 20% less, fewer contacts regarding customer billing. This is impact not only about the customer service quality, but also upon the cost. As you will see on this slide, all the metrics that we are measuring, quality metrics, NPS, CSI, indicate that we are moving in the right direction. However, with each quarter that we are implementing something, customers are asking us to implement new things. The main element being digitization and simplification, where 90% of customers already have electronic invoice. This is specific savings and specific quality.
Also, the handling, remote handling. 1 million contacts per month, 50% of those are remote contacts. We're talking about the online and so on. Please note that if it wasn't for the digitalization, we wouldn't be speaking about it. Digitalization, this key, what's also important, customer service is not only sales and the customer service. In the strategy, we have a rapid pace of growth of a distribution and the customer orientation. Give you an example. Working on the expansion of a grid, the first thing that the distribution line of business did is a dialogue with the local government units and the social partners, the workers. Before the grid expansion plans were developed, the dialogue and discussion took place where this grid is to be expanded.
The next thing is the fact that 50% of the grid connections for the household segment are issued electronically. Easy banal things, but they make life easier and automatically improve the customer service. Okay. The strategy that we discussed, we also take into account very strongly the so-called just transition. It's both just and profitable because these two things we take into account in our work. Mainly, it is focused on the conventional energy. That's the main part of the strategy. It's in line with our declarations. We didn't withdraw from any area that we are operating in. We are building a new life everywhere. On one hand, we are maintaining the conventional energy because it's necessary to supply energy here now to the economy, but also to supply energy for the transition.
We want the capacity market for over 200 MW units, full stabilization of the 910 MW units. The conventional energy is doing well. We are preparing now for the subsequent auctions for 2027. In each area, we are conducting the social dialogue, both by people in the local communities. We are building new solutions. Michał will describe to you what's happening to Jaworzno. When we won the capacity market for the peaking gas-fired unit, we are working on the battery energy storage systems. We are building also a hydrogen hub. In each of the area that we were conducting operations, and we are conducting operations, we'll continue conducting operations. Of course, profitable from the investor's point of view. What we are looking at, we are listening to what's happening, what are the trends, expectations.
We are talking about the local content. We are speaking about building the competitive advantage of the Polish economy. Wherever we can provide support, of course, respecting the legal elements, the competition, we are conducting maintaining such a relationship with the suppliers. Let me tell you that the distribution itself, at least 90% now of a local content. You can look at what the new tender is, the way the new tender is done for the energy meters, system meters. When we look at the supply market, and we are making sure that we have very fair competition. An excellent thing that we managed to do, maybe not managed, but just did, is to reduce the entry barriers for the small entities. Two years ago, we're looking at the organization that was highly centralized.
As a matter of fact, only large consortia, large companies were able to take part in the tender proceedings. We split those solutions. We allowed a lot of small companies. This way, we are building those local markets. Now, a lot of small companies can start working with us. What we can see, what's important is those companies have the basis to start investing. The main entry barrier or growth barrier for the small and medium enterprises was the fact that the energy companies such as ours were unpredictable regarding their CapEx, regarding their expansion, regarding the delivery on what they were declaring they would do. After those two years, those companies have become convinced that this PLN 100 billion plan that we announced is being steadfastly implemented.
Based on that, those companies can invest in automation and new solutions, and that we can see that. This means that the technology on the support that we get is much more advanced. The final thing regarding what we deliver is I'd like to demonstrate how we approach the communication issues. You can see what's the position of TAURON, how it is positioning itself. We want to promote the brand that is for the customer, and this is most important. It's important how we're being perceived. Other things that happened during that time. The Książ Castle in the Lower Silesia, we have our customers there, but also a unique special place and wonderful people that we can work with. We acquired the naming rights sponsor of the Silesian Park.
It's a place in Silesia that's very important. A lot of people have meetings there. We've been conducting very good cooperation with TAURON Arena. We continue that. We are a sponsor of Polish Volleyball League and the Hockey League. Currently, we are working on further projects. Maybe if there's an opportunity, I'll be able to tell you that, and if there are questions, we'll share our insights. Looking from the point of view whether we deliver, it's a subjective assessment. We do deliver. Let me hand over the floor to the colleagues. It's also important. Excuse me. Two things I'd like to bring up yet. When Piotr Gołębiowski was still a member of our management board, I must say it because he's watching us. You have greetings, and he thanks for that. We have Krzysztof with us, Krzysztof Zawadzki.
He's the head of trading, of course, of the entire company. In 2026, that's the composition, very strong, full of energy. Welcome, Krzysztof, on board. Now officially moving forward, 2026. Thank you very much.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great pleasure for me to be here after more than 10 years. Let me move on to the details of the situation on the energy market. Let me present several key facts regarding 2025, which to a certain extent characterized the past year increase of intra-day spot and balancing market price amplitudes. This is due to the certain system problems and an opportunity for optimization, which we like to take advantage of. This optimization can be done through buying of renewable energy and then buying and selling at a higher price.
For instance, this price enables putting online the 200 MW units, for instance, at the prices which will cover the operation at least for the 90 hours of a system. The increase of installed capacity in photovoltaic farms, quite a big growth, 11.6% in 2025. This is also has an impact upon the problem that I just brought up. The growing number of a negative hours in the absolute values, these are not big volumes, but they show a certain trend and problem that, in my opinion, will be recurring in the subsequent years. We also observed the rising CDS in 2025. That's true that the price of the coal went down 30% year-over-year almost. However, these carbon permits went up, and the electricity prices went up. We had also lower average outdoor temperatures in 2025.
Let me refer to the temperatures when I present the data upon the sales and supply of heat and production from our sources. A slight decrease of the national electricity consumption is an interesting piece of information. The GDP went up 3.3%, and the national electricity consumption didn't go up. This indicates two phenomena. First of all, the correlation of GDP with the national consumption, power consumption definitely dropped down. This correlation, a few years back was 1 or 0.95, which meant that as the GDP went up, the national consumption went up. Now we don't see this correlation. We don't see for the second reason. We have a decline of coal-fired production, 2.7%. This was replaced with renewables and the cross-border exchange close to 1 TWh. That's the imports balance.
Just a piece of information in the context of what's happening now and the situation related to the Middle East conflict. We can see that there's been a change. Now, the balance almost 1.5 TWh. The situation supports that the situation where electricity is pushed to the adjacent countries where the electricity prices are much higher than in Poland. The redispatching, that's also quite a critical element, a feature of 2025, almost 90%. Let me just remind you of it. 2025, redispatching was 0.9 GWh. Now we can see this problem growing. It's related to the increasing volume of renewables in the system. Annual contracting starting from 2025, 2022, 2023, N+1, N+2, N+3. You can see the trend regarding the annual contracts is downward trend.
Let's say 2020 to 2027, it became more flat, and now the prices are stable. Our generation portfolio regarding the electricity production, net electricity production, we have an increase +7% in the lower left corner at the bottom, we can see the composition of this production. It's mainly related to the production from conventional sources. We have an increase in renewables, but the share in the entire energy mix is not too high. Let me just draw attention to the hydropower electricity production, quite a significant drop. Hydro generation 2025 were dramatically bad in the first quarter of this year. We don't see any improvement, similar as in case of wind conditions. Increase of heat production, 11.4 petajoules. This is related to the previous year's temperatures. We have an increase of CO2 emissions by +6%.
The cost of redeemed is lower than in 2024. This is due to the fact that we contracted prices of 2025 in 2024, and the increase is related to 2025. Consumption of coal +4%. I'm talking about our conventional sources, and we have an increase of renewables in net production, 15.3%. That's in line with our strategy. This share will be going up. Renewables production curtailments. It is a strong growth here. I will elaborate on that in a moment. Curtailments, redispatching, these are our actions. As curtailments, we want to avoid the negative prices. We can see a clear increase, however, we have an enormous growth and the limitations that are due to the limitations of the system. System operator act is quite clear. The energy that it's not including the national power.
The solution in the next few years is better energy storage facilities, and the ability to use this energy that's not used in the system. It's enormous growth year-over-year regardless. Still we have availability. I will not be describing it in detail, but this is the levels of our units versus the average availability rate in the national power system. In case of a hydropower system, we are above the average value. However, in the case of a coal-fired unit, 82.3%, we are below. The sales supply portfolio, electricity supply, we have a decline almost 6% down. You can see clearly the decline is mainly to the business customers and mainly the SMEs, almost 1.7 TWh in those low margin segments.
Our strategy assume that we want to acquire customers at the appropriate level of margin, and we are trying to restore this volume in the subsequent years, assuming the minimum profitability that we have assumed. The increase of the greening of our supply, 13.6% this year. We assume in line with our strategy that this growth will be continued in the subsequent years. The electricity fed into the grid by the prosumers, the old system in force until 2022, till April. As a matter of fact, this difference is due to the production volume. By the new system, the net billing system, the number of consumers that feed the electricity into the grid is going up 20% year-over-year. Heat supply to the market, 13.8 petajoules.
can easily calculate. We take into account our production, about 17% of energy we buy from other sources. A few comments about our flagship products related our tariffs. The new energy product, the fixed price product, over a nine-year timeframe, quite a rapid growth of a product that was launched in 2024 in June. 316,000 customers. In January, we acquired 13,000 new contracts, mainly these are households, 266,000 consumption points, 30,000 these are SMEs customers. The cheap hours product, a very interesting product for customers who are highly conscious, highly aware of electricity consumption. They can manage the consumption to appropriate tariffs. We have 26 different hourly rates that we can adjust, adapt to our devices. It leads to major savings. 25,000 customers at the end of January, another 6,000 customers.
The popularity of this product is going up. On this slide, we are showing this in transparent manner. For the first time, we are showing this slide, what type of auctions we won, what revenue will be expected, stemming from those capacity markets until up to 2046. Regarding the auctions won in 2025, we have guaranteed PLN 4.5 billion. Maybe preemptive answer to preempt the question, how much capacity we have contracted? About 70%, 75%. In 2025, we had 9% of capacity under auction versus in 2026 is 78%. We assume that we'll be taking part in the additional supplementary auctions, and this ratio will go up to the level that we observed in the previous years.
Let me move on to the financial data and hand over the floor to Krzysztof.
T hank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the record-breaking year. As the CEO mentioned at the very beginning, the financial results are at the record-breaking level. Although the revenue is 3% lower, however, this is impacted by the market conditions, the decline of electricity price, the withdrawal from the compensation payment system and a bit lower volume, as Krzysztof mentioned, in the supply line of business. If you look at the EBITDA, they are more than PLN 7.5 billion, a record-breaking result, more than PLN 1 billion more than last year. I will elaborate on the individual details, on individual segments further on. If you move to the net profit, more than PLN 3 billion, we haven't yet recorded such results.
This, of course, impacted first of all by the good operating results, but also, let us remember, in 2025, we didn't deal with any impairment charges, which is very important, any write-downs. These write-downs were affecting the group very strongly in the previous years. The second thing, the write-down on the result of the deferred tax year-over-year was also better. Very good financial results enabled us for the first time after 11 years to recommend the payout of a dividend more than PLN 350 million. That's PLN 0.2 per share. We recommended as of now to, in June, to be the day of record. The beginning of July, we could pay out the dividend for the shareholders. Regarding the level of capital expenditure went up by 10% year-over-year.
It topped PLN 5.6 billion . Michał will elaborate on that during his part of presentation. Regarding the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, it went down significantly, materially year-over-year. It was impacted by the good earnings, operating results, the good EBITDA that I mentioned before. On the other hand, the lowering of net debt, I will elaborate on that further on during presentation. What's important, it's worth noting that EBITDA, reported EBITDA, and the comparable EBITDA are at a very similar level. We're talking about the one-off events that took place in 2025. They were fully focused in the supply, concentrated in the full line of business, in the supply line of business, and they offset one another. The positive impact, the result of the tariff implemented in 2025.
We mentioned in beginning of 2024, the President of Energy Regulatory Office set the tariff for 1.5 years. This tariff in 2024 was at the level, but didn't fully cover the cost. Therefore, the earnings of 2024 in the second half of the year in the detail were negative. We showed it on the bridge for comparable EBITDA for 2024. In 2025, to a certain extent, we made up for that shortfall in the first quarter. President of Energy Regulatory Office took a decision to change the tariff for the fourth quarter, which means the first three quarters allowed us to recover a major portion of this EBITDA, about PLN 400 million. At the end of 2025, we were affected by two negative factor. The first factor being the setting of the G tariff for 2026.
It didn't fully cover the cost. Therefore, the group took the decision to set up a provision in the fourth quarter of 2025 in the amount of about PLN 246 million. The second negative factor, the summons by the President of the Energy Regulatory Office, which then after the balance sheet date, the summons of the President of the Energy Regulatory Office related to the potential improper settlement of right to the price difference payout fund, PLN 270 million. The President of the regulatory office stated we set a provision for 2025 in this amount. The payment was made in March this year. However, the company will be appealing against this decision.
If we move on to the slides that are directly related to the individual lines of business, individual segments, let's look at the nominal values of EBITDA. Here, of course, the group is made up to a large extent to the distribution EBITDA. We have PLN 4.8 billion, a significant increase year-over-year. I'll elaborate on that in a moment. It's not a surprise. It represents 64% of EBITDA of the entire group. However, a surprising result in the generation segment. Last year, it took the second spot, almost PLN 280 million of EBITDA. One can say it's a very good result for the conventional segment. Spot number three on the podium, the supply and wholesale trading, about PLN 660 million of EBITDA. It's a very good result.
We hope we can get these results also in subsequent years, although it's gonna be very difficult, especially in the next year, but I will elaborate on when I present the outlook. If we look at the individual factors behind the increase or decline of individual segments versus 2024, of course, the key segment for the group continues to be the distribution line of business. It was a very good year for the distribution. We had a number of positive impacts on the earnings. The first one being the growing value of regulatory asset base. I will be mentioning at the end of the presentation. The second factor is the growing WACC, weighted average cost of capital. The third thing is the growing, but not so markedly, volume. That's a very good result.
Krzysztof mentioned the entire system. We had this zero-minus result, but in our distribution line of business, our result was slightly positive, volume, regarding volume, and it generated additional funds, and was very important in the context of results year-over-year. We'll elaborate on that in the further part of the presentation. That is, the amount of regulatory account, the value of the account was negative in 2024, and the same thing was positive 2025. Therefore, the year-over-year result was very positive. Let us remember that as a matter of fact, the value of a regulatory account is the settlement of a volume that is divergent between the tariff and the actual performance.
If the actual performance was better than what we had envisaged in the tariff, under the tariff, then we get the negative adjustment on the regulatory account when it's being accounted for settled two years later. The difference on this account determines to a large extent the result of a distribution line of business. I will elaborate on it talking about the outlook for 2026. If you look at the renewables segment, unfortunately, here decline around PLN 112 million year-over-year. Why? Because we had several factors. First of all, the declining prices, electricity prices, and the prices of the green certificates. Then we have to add to that the poor weather conditions, as Krzysztof mentioned, and in spite of commissioning more capacity, new capacity, so the volume wasn't that good. The weaker prices determined the results.
Regarding the heat segment, the result is quite good. Although the segment had a slight PLN -6 million year-over-year. However, this result was determined by the one-off event that took place in 2024 related to the deconsolidation of the TAMEH Czech company subsidiary. If we look at the operating results themselves, after we strip out the one-offs, then the result would have been positive. This was first of all impacted by the volume. Krzysztof mentioned much lower temperatures year-over-year during the heating season meant that in the heat line of business, we generated a substantially positive result, which had the decline of the price on the market, had a negative impact upon the margin. The margin, Krzysztof, was a bit lower. Generally, the overall earnings in the segment, like heat segment, were good.
Looking at the supply and wholesale trading segment here, partly I described this result. I talked about the one-off event, but if we look at the entire picture, generally the margin, the additional margin in the G tariff and the margin in the entire business, it was very good last year. However, something that surprised us, additional costs, profile costs that were year-over-year around PLN 280 million. One can say that this will be impacting us alone as the energy storage business are not running at full speed, so we'll be affected by that strongly due to the substantial increase of renewables asset. That's a problem affecting the entire sector, and it's worth noting that TAURON is one of the leaders regarding the balancing.
Probably this problem is as big as important, taking into account the fact that we are the leader regarding the balancing. It will be relatively greater, this problem, relatively greater in other energy groups. Regarding one-off events, both provision set up, I already mentioned at the very beginning when I talked about the EBITDA, comparable EBITDA. If we move on to the generation segment, as I mentioned, talking about why I talk about the nominal EBITDA, the PLN 250 million, a very good result, growth year-over-year more than PLN 200 million. First of all, we mean two factors, increase of volume, as Krzysztof mentioned, very good earnings in our segment, looking very good against the backdrop of the entire sector. Let us remember that the coal sector dropped, declined nationwide, and we went up, we rose.
Also, another thing regarding volume, regarding capacity market, let's remember that the capacity contracts apart from the ones that we are winning, those historically concluded for the multiyear year contracts, they adjusted based on the inflation rate from the year -2 . It also had a major impact, positive impact upon the earnings. We also took advantage of the new balancing capacity market, which was introduced in the middle of 2024. Moving on to the debt. Here, good news is also the debt year-over-year went down. Net debt went down by more than PLN 800 million. Regarding the overall result, where we are showing all areas of debt, including CO2, the decline was about PLN 500 million . Let me draw attention to two, three factors in the entire bridge.
The first thing is the gradual departure from the subordinated bond. That was the most expensive part of the financing in our portfolio. Of course, it meant the reduction of net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, because it wasn't included in this calculation of this leverage ratio, but we are partly withdrawing from it, departing from it. It was part of a plan and partly acquired from the BGK. The last final tranche will repay in March this year. In the future, you will not see this part in the bridge view anymore. We are smoothly converting into the cheapest financing in the portfolio. We are suggesting increasing the financing from the National Recovery Plan. Last year, we drew around PLN 1.6 billion as part of the National Recovery Plan.
First of all, digitization and the modernization and the construction of the new power lines in the distribution line of business. What's important, we explained it during our previous conferences, we are realistically splitting this component due to the fact that this preferential financing from the National Recovery Plan regarding the grid is at a very attractive level, 0.5% fixed interest rate for the entire period of financing. We are stripping out the component, according to the International Financial Reporting Standards. We are stripping out the preferential component, and the preferential component as part of the prepayment and accruals is not included in the debt in the financial reporting, financial statements. The difference between the nominal component, the nominal debt, and the one that we include in the financial statements is last year came in at about PLN 1 billion.
We are showing it in the bridge view. It's a very significant value, and to a large degree, it depends upon the moment how close we are to the maturity deadline. Working capital utilization on the market that has a significant impact upon the difference between the net debt and the gross debt. The full debt calculated according to the nominal value. That's why we are transparently showing in the bridge view. Last thing I'd like to draw attention to is the leases. Just remember, that it's not, these are not classical leases, but these are to a large extent the long-term easements leases according to the definition introduced of IFRS 16, introduced some time ago. These long-term contracts that are natural for our distribution line of business or green energy will be significantly increasing the value of the leases.
Grzegorz brought up at the very beginning, we deliver, and it's worth praising our key strategic component, stable financial position. We're not forgetting it. Last year, one should indicate, first of all, not only the maintaining of investment grade by improvement, the upgrading of this outlook, the rating agency revised this outlook in the fall last year. The second thing that I'd like to draw attention to is the value of preferential funding obtained. Ladies and gentlemen, we promised in our strategy that the total value of the preferential funding for the entire time frame of the strategy up to 2035 with respect to the entire CapEx is PLN 100 billion would be at the level of about 20%-30%.
We are today, let's say 1.5 year, well, less than 1.5 years since we announced that strategy. We already have PLN 18 billion. 80% of that was already obtained, including PLN 5.6 billion in 2025 alone. Here we're talking about the National Recovery Plan programs for the grid, for the digitization and the renewables. In addition, we acquired subsidy from the Modernisation Fund for the better energy storage systems and a number of other subsidies for the hydrogen and fiber optics. TAURON, let me break here. TAURON is a number one leader in the country regarding the funds acquired from the National Recovery Plan. Additionally, one should indicate that TAURON has also secured guaranteed financing programs that fully cover at least a 12-year lead time in the financing according to our strategy.
At least 12 months ahead, we always want to be 12 months ahead covered. Those guaranteed lines of credits at the end of 2025 amounted to PLN 6.2 billion . That's all in this section, main financial section. I'll go back to the finances, talking about the outlook, but at the end of the floor to Michał, who will speak about the CapEx program.
Ladies and gentlemen, 2025 is a record-breaking year regarding the earnings capitalization, but also the CapEx. In 2025, we invested more than PLN 5.6 billion . This is a 10% growth year-over-year. The most important segment in our CapEx continues to be the distribution line of business that we PLN 3.8 billion was allocated to. It's worth emphasizing the structure of our expenditures in the distribution changes.
Up to now it was the construction of the new grid connections, our regulatory obligations, but to the preferential financing, we are able now to implement also to a large extent the upgrading the modernization of the grid assets, which was the original assumption of the efficient transition cost and the original assumption of the work in this segment. That's why we are implementing those changes successfully, which has an impact upon the material growth of our infrastructure. Among others, 3,400 new power lines in the distribution grid and 900 km of upgraded lines, 700 new stations, more than 400 upgraded substations. We are preparing the grid for the future expansion of the grid and expand, improve the metrics. The next important area is the smart meters.
As of today, 43% of our customers have the smart meter. This is 8% above the regulatory target for 2025, which stood at 35%. We are going faster, moving faster than the regulatory requirements. We want to provide them as many as possible customers—our customers to provide the modern meters that are necessary for using the dynamic tariff. Regarding the renewables segment, the decline year-over-year to PLN 881 million in CapEx, although in this segment, as a matter of fact, the outlays are important because a large portion of implementations are based on advanced payments. The outlays in the segment came in at PLN 1.4 billion, which is a more correct image of the actual progress on those products. About the details of those products, I will expand on during the slides.
The heat segment, the main thing is we are at the stage of launching the investment projects. Last year, we launched the gas-fired engine Bielsko 30 MW electric capacity, which moved on to the implementation phase. Other key investment decision regarding the generation asset we want to modernize by 2030 will be made this year. As a matter of fact, this year we will launch the majority of the project in this segment. Apart from the construction of a new generation source, we also have maintenance and the connecting of the new facilities. Last year, we connected more than 30 MWth to our grid. Regarding the supply and other segments, PLN 200 million in the IT investments. Apart from the maintenance of the lighting infrastructure and expansion of fiber optic network, these are the most important items.
Year -over- year, the expenses went up in the combined generation. This is due to the maintenance cycle of our Łagisza Power Plant. Let me remind you, the power unit number 10 in Łagisza is the second most efficient unit in our generation facilities. It also has a heating component which provides Katowice household with steam, so the large district heating system is a necessary component for this functioning of the system. This major overhaul, the final major overhaul planned for this unit in line with today's assumptions for its life cycle, the unit cannot be operated until 2030 as of today, and this major overhaul secures the possibility of operating it by the deadline. Apart from that, the CapEx related to the replacement and repair program for our Nowe Jaworzno, our latest unit.
This is a matter of adaptation of certain components that is required modernization, especially the coal mills and the I&C, Instrumentation and Control, and the OCGT Jaworzno. This is the largest conventional project that in December won the capacity auction, as part of which it secured the revenue of about PLN 4 billion. Now we are at the stage of contracting the delivery of the turbine. We are expecting the bids in the middle of April, and this time will allow us to give you a better, more precise answer regarding the assumed CapEx for this facility. Moving on. 2025 was a record-breaking year regarding the commissioning of the renewable projects. We commissioned 195 MW, thanks to which, along with the biomass, recently managed to top 1 GW of the RES installed capacity.
A big milestone achieved on the road to the implementation of our strategy. Regarding the product that we commissioned, first of all, in wind farms Nowa Brzeźnica and Sieradz, which were commissioned last year. However, we have Miejska Górka underway, this project. The project is moving ahead along in line with the plan. We have practically completed the cabling work. The transformer GPZ, the power supply online, about 90% advancement. 35 out of 53 turbines have already been installed. Therefore, the wind farm is moving ahead in line with the plan. We are planning to commission in the middle of 2027. Regarding the photovoltaic farms project, two projects were commissioned, the Bałków and Postomino. The Postomino project is an interesting project because it's a cable pooling with our existing Marszewo 100 MW of wind farm.
A large scale cable pooling running, operating normally now. Also launched two interesting projects in Ogrodzieniec and Mysłowice. Why I'm saying it's very interesting? First of all, because these are in-house development projects. Both projects were prepared by us. Mysłowice on our own site. Ogrodzieniec on a third-party site. Mysłowice also land reclamation, the cultivation of the potential site will be included in this project. Those projects have also preferential financing in place from the National Recovery Plan, and PLN 296 million of financing was acquired for this. The interest - 200 basis points , so it's a highly preferential financing. We were asked questions about all the PV projects, for probably this type of preferential financing.
We have no doubt about the independent position in this area, so we are using the preferential financing to launch further projects. Moving on. Recently, one of the key things that we are doing was to secure the profitability of a battery energy storage systems project. In total, we implemented, we commissioned, more than 560 MW. It was possible thanks to obtaining the preferential financing and the secured capacity market auctions. All the projects that we launched have either the grants of a national government protection fund or one capacity market with 2029-2030 delivery time, especially the grant PLN 538 million for 260 MW in projects financing a substantial amount that significantly improves the possibility of our better energy storage projects.
Those projects we are launching, basically, we think that on this market, there will be some bonus for being first-mover advantage. Energy storage will be competing with each other. Planning this investment project, we're first of all looking at the ability to get a grid connection. We're not waiting for the moment of the support being launched on the capacity market, but we connect those facilities once it's possible based on the grid conditions.
We start with small projects in Dąbie and Przewóz that were already commissioned, and this will allow us to test the procedures regarding, first of all, the acceptance of investment project and the investment project, and on the other hand, operational and commercial management of those facilities, so as to be ready to work with larger project, to test the procedures and to be able to commercialize the other units in an optimum manner right away after they take off. Those energy storages will be gradually commissioned in the subsequent years. Soon, we will commission other 16 MW. However, the bigger 900 MW package in 2027, the majority of program completed in 2028.
If we look at the total scale of the magnitude of the projects that we are implementing in these three segments, wind farms, PVs and battery energy storage systems, we have 889 MW in progress, underway. It's an unprecedented scale looking at the history of our company. As I mentioned recently, we topped 1 GW in total capacity in renewables. Now we have about 900 MW underway, so we are speeding up, accelerating investments in this segment. If we look at the implementation of our strategic goals regarding the renewables, then we can see various speeds. If we talk about the wind segment here, we can see that certain projects were commissioned. However, we didn't manage, at least over the last six months to acquire new projects to be implemented.
It's related to the fact that when we are looking at the targets in the nominal terms and the availability of the profitable investment product, we opt for profitability of investment product. We are frank here, but the wind market is demanding. However, we're looking for solutions. We're looking at options to cooperate and secure product that at an earlier development stage. Among others, we signed further documents. We're negotiating with the National Agriculture Support program, which could provide us with sites for wind farms, and also looking for external partner to get products at an earlier stage of development.
Regarding PV, our pipeline allows us to accomplish the strategic goals, but we're trying to optimize the financial decision, investment decision, and use the external financing, as I mentioned. From a physical point of view, this goal is definitely manageable, achievable, but this depends upon the availability of a preferential financing, whether we are able to fully accomplish it. We had a major acceleration, energy storage. We believe in the first move advantage, and the majority of strategic goal accomplishment is already secured in this line of business.
Moving on to the final part of the presentation, outlook for 2026. It's one of the most interesting parts, what will be happening, imagining for you. Here, the EBITDA in 2026, we assume that will not be as good as the one we achieved in 2025.
If we look at the individual segments, what about their performance, how we see them performing. Distribution segment itself, we assume that EBITDA year-over-year will be low, and here we have positive and negative factor. Let's start with the positive one. The positive one is the increase of Regulatory Asset Base. I will display one more bridge in a moment related to that. Second thing is increase of depreciation that also improves the company's earnings, however, the result of investment carried out in the previous years. However, regarding negative factors, this is the decline of a weighted average cost of capital down to 9.5%. This had a major decline year-over-year. However, the key factor that will determine the earnings year-over-year is the balance of a regulatory account that I mentioned before.
The balance was positive in 2025, PLN 270 million. It will be negative in 2026, PLN 170 million. We have more than PLN 440 million difference year- over- year. To a large extent, this will determine the result of a distribution line of business. Regarding the renewables, we are expecting a similar result year- over- year, and we'll have the two factors that will be determining that. The first factor, with the -1 . This is the matter of a decline of prices. The price year- over- year will be lower. First of all, we are talking about the electricity price. The positive factors, we are commissioning new capacities, and we believe the new capacities, of course, to a large extent, it all depends upon the weather conditions.
We do believe that the new capacity will make up for the lost EBITDA due to the lower prices. Regarding the heat segment, here we assume better earnings year- over- year. First of all, we're talking about the heat part. We assume the cost of generation will be a bit slightly lower in the heat generation area and the higher transmission tariff regarding the transmission. Of course, the temperature, outdoor temperature will also have a major impact upon the final earnings over its segment. However, the lower result, the lower margin we assume in the electricity production area, of course, is not a key part of that segment. However, the lower result will be first of all due to the lower prices and the tightening CDS.
If you look at the generation segment, we assume that it will not be possible to maintain as that good results that we managed to post in 2025. First of all, the same factors we are dealing with here is in the heat segment, but the impact is reverse of a determining factor is electricity. The decline of the prices and the tightening CDS will lead to the lower margin electricity generation. We also have a little bit lower futures contracting, which will reduce the buyback potential and the final thing will have a positive impact. Here, this as in the heat segment, but in the generation segment, it's a much lower impact. It's a positive impact over heat sales. The cost of generation will be year-over-year lower, which should lead to the better results on heat production.
As a matter of fact, the segment that in our opinion will have relatively the weakest earnings versus previous year year-over-year, it's a supply segment. We saw the positive factor. Krzysztof already mentioned that we are doing our best to restore, to recover the volume, the profitable volume. As I mentioned before, we got rid of onerous contracts and were a burden to our results, earnings, and we are recovering this volume. We hope that in 2026 we'll recover this volume in a profitable manner, but the results of the segment will be strongly burdened by the decision on the G tariff. The part of the provisions, it was reflected in 2025. We set up a provision for that.
However, this means that we'll not be generating the margin on the tariff covered customers in 2026, at least if the tariff doesn't change within the year. Now one can say a few words about the CapEx. We expect to continue our CapEx program implementation as we outlined, the share of CapEx will go up year-over-year. This plus a weaker EBITDA plus a higher CapEx will mean the deterioration of a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio. Regarding distribution itself, the final slide we wanted to show you just to make it easier for you to understand our main segments. We're addressing the expectation of the analysts. There's always questions about this slide. We want to show what the structure of the regulated revenue, what's the building of value of regulatory asset base.
Let me start the first one, what I'd like to draw attention to. First of all, I like to draw attention to the fact that this revenue is made up of four key portions, and we are always focusing on the key one for the group is the level of weighted average cost of capital. If you look at the structure of energy bill for the customer in 2026, due to the decline of WACC, it will represent only 17%. Any movement in WACC, any fluctuations will not have made an impact upon the energy bill for the customer. Everybody's talking about the change of WACC. This is not the main component that changes the energy bill. The passed on fees are the charges are the main component that changes the energy bill. The main component being in 2025 is the value of the capacity charge.
This is a part of the energy bill, but it's not up to TAURON. It's passed on further to the TSO. As a matter of fact, this is the main determining factor behind the change. Regarding the other components, increasing depreciation already mentioned, of course, this component, as the program is moving ahead, will be going up. However, this cost component that is declining year- over- year is mainly the determining factor being the settlement of regulatory account. If we look at the Regulatory Asset Base, let me draw attention to one important factor here. We're dealing with an increase between 2025 versus 2024 by about PLN 2 billion, something that came up for first time in 2025. Now it'll be continued in 2026.
We'll add 35% of the regulatory asset base, 35% of the planned CapEx over the coming year. Before 2025, it didn't exist. 2025 it meant a step change increase over asset base. Let me emphasize that exactly the same mechanism will be applicable in 2026. It increases the regulatory asset base value in total about PLN 1.5 billion. As I said, ultimately, the value that we expect is about PLN 26.6 billion for 2026. That's all regarding the presentation. Now let's move on to the Q&A session.
We agreed the hour mark as part of our presentation. We delivered. One cannot exceed this value because you might be angry with us. We don't want that. Ladies and gentlemen, let's move on to the questions.
You can see questions coming up online in our form. Let's start with the persons present in the audience. Any of you would like to ask a question?
Good morning. Paweł Puchalski, Santander. Let me refer to practically the last slide, the distribution and the increase of Regulatory Asset Base. Because based on what I can see, this new formula, 35% of the current year is responsible for the majority of the increase of Regulatory Asset Base. Two questions. First of all, whether at certain point in time, because you in fact, you're eating part of a cake that you haven't yet, it's implemented, and you are planning to implement it. Will there be a time where this mechanism, 35% of previous last and 30% next year will be finished?
At that point in time, hypothetically, I'm just thinking, there would be totally no growth of Regulatory Asset Base in certain year. That's one thing. Second thing, why your CapEx for this year and next year in distribution is not twice as high? Based on this graph, you can see that simply it's worth investing in the Regulatory Asset Base.
Let me respond to the first part. As of now, we don't have any information regarding a change of a model. Of course, for some time there's been a discussion with the president of Energy Regulatory Office whether the distribution model should change, but today, there's no new information on that.
Since this mechanism was implemented, I also assume that at no point in time no one will draw from that, because it would set us back and it would stop the increase of Regulatory Asset Base at a certain point in time. I do not assume this will materialize. We do not take into account the fact that this mechanism regarding the calculation of regulated Regulatory Asset Base would be changed. Regarding the value of Regulatory Asset Base and value of CapEx, let me hand over the floor to Michał in a moment.
Let us remember, we stated the amount, investatively, the amount of CapEx in this line of business, that was PLN 60 billion. As a matter of fact, the biggest portion of PLN 160 billion we plan to spend in distribution alone.
It seems so significantly a lot. With one thing, we have to keep the financial discipline in place. We promised the maintaining of investment grade rating and then leverage ratio to be at the right level. There's also about the execution market, the implementation market. 100% increase of CapEx will not be also handled by this market. If we do it, we would implement the inflation rate increase. We'll not be able to complete the CapEx plan. Would like to add something?
Well, I consistently spoke during the period conferences that the sustainable growth for the construction companies is about 20% year-over-year, and we've been sticking to that so far. I think it's also worth mentioning another issue, the tariff issue. Here, substantial increase of the CapEx would also involve higher pressure on the tariff.
Therefore, this process of achieving agreement, the growth plans is year-over-year agreed upon with President of the Energy Regulatory Office. It's not easy to implement. To increase this 2 x would have an impact upon the energy bills in the short term. We consider this level of growth rate is to be rational, both from the consumer's point of view and the tariff point of view.
Yes, but my question is more related to the comparison of TAURON versus PGE. PGE has a higher CapEx and has this WACC about. I don't remember, 11%. You have a lower one, and you have 9.5%. Let me be frank, I prefer 11% versus 9.5%, especially that this disparity has been in place for two years in a row. Why isn't TAURON like PGE in the distribution segment?
Let me be frank here, we will not be commenting on the legislative process. I think in our opinion, according to our knowledge, we have, that's true, below PGE, but basically higher than the majority of market players. We are increasing gradually this CapEx plan. We have a commitment to the distribution and our business. We hope that in the subsequent years we will be able to achieve a relatively good rate of return versus the rest of the market.
Let me just add, we will not be referring to PGE. PGE hasn't had an earnings conference yet. He didn't demonstrate, didn't show yet what WACC they will have. We can just expect what level it will be at. Let's remember that PGE also has special subsidies for the eastern part of the country.
We don't have those grants, and that's also an important portion of the CapEx. Generally, one would have to strip out what's the level of CapEx with the grants and excluding grants. Because remember, the grant is not included in the rate of return. The question is whether the CapEx includes the difference in the CapEx, does it include the grants or not? I wouldn't say this black or white, that the president of the Energy Regulatory Office is saying that you have an increase of investment and automatically the increase of the WACC will be the same. We would like to have it more strictly defined. It's not just one-to-one process.
One more question regarding your collaterals, your hedging policy. Can you disclose how are you hedging the conventional and renewable segments?
I'm talking about the electricity prices.
We try not to disclose the contracting. However, regarding the renewables, I can say what percentage of in-house production we have had regarding 2026 within internal PPA agreements. We have 100% contracting secured for 2026, and 75% for 2027. As part of internal PPAs. Yes? Thank you.
But please note information, what is the point here. The business unit generation, renewables, internal trading that takes place, and the external customers. Please note that the so-called PPAs we are talking about is the combining of renewables production output with the trading, mixing, profiling, and allocating this electricity with the final customers. The contracting of the generation on one hand is combined with the sales of electricity under long-term contracts with customers under various models.
We have one of the highest, most developed dispersed PPAs in Europe, definitely 100,000 customers that have contracted energy supply for nine years ahead. Krzysztof mentioned before volumes, large scale. I don't remember the numbers, but we could repeat in a moment. This entire philosophy is such that what is securing and hedging of our production and in our product, it finds automatically contracting on the customer side. The model we are talking about, the customer profile, 6 million customers and systematic, you know, contracting for various types of products. Therefore, we're talking about going green, the energy mix, the production mix. We are talking about something like that we are investing onshore because the production profile from the onshore output is most aligned to the customer consumption profiles.
Therefore, because profiling, the balancing is lowest, we supplement it with PVs and the energy storage that can help us profiling and reducing the profile cost. Any unit of electricity generated by our renewables sources find a place in the contracting with the customer. That's why we're talking about the PPAs, internal PPAs. This is something more than the traditional classic production, trading and the exchange, power exchange.
Next question. Yes, we have a gentleman here.
Thank you very much. Zbigniew Wiśnicki, Rzeczpospolita, Parkiet. I have quick three questions, if I may. The first one is related to the report, annual report, where we can read that you're planning or you're assuming that coal will continue operating until 2030. When you're writing then, the contracts are valid of the economics of a so-called old coal. Łagisza, Jaworzno, Łagisza is 2028.
I'd like to ask then. When can we expect a change of a decision regarding the decommissioning of coal-fired units at three sites, since we are reading the group is planning to phase out coal for production of heat and decommissioning of coal units by 2030. We know the decisions, corporate decisions of 2021, if I remember correctly, assume that in those sites, those coal will be phased out in 2028. The third question I want to ask about the ETS. Tomorrow, we are supposed to find out the first indications of European Commission about the changes to the ETS. I'd like to ask about how much you spent last year to purchase carbon credits, and how much you're planning to spend this year.
The third question, which referring to what President Orłowski mentioned, you place your bets on the in-house development. Number of projects already are surfacing, the one that you develop in-house. But for you, will be a positive effect of grid law, the act on the grid that is awaiting the signature of the president. If it's signed, then will you be consolidating the small and medium renewables developers, and you'll be taking over them, either products or businesses and hire them?
Okay, thank you. As I said before, I'll answer first. First thing is that what is written in the strategy is still up to date. In 2021, the then management board passed a resolution and says that if the coal-fired units are not profitable, that you need to phase them out, decommission them.
That's also in line with coal commission companies' provisions. If something is not profitable, then you need to restructure it, shut it down or improve profitability. That's one prospect, point of view. In the strategy, we said that the capacity market for those 200 MW is valid till 2028. This is the legislation today. The regulatory condition says as follows, that 2028 is the final year of the 200 MW units operations. If the situation were as today, as it's written in the laws and documents. The 200 MW units are not able to maintain themselves from electricity production because the operational hours may be below 2,000 hours, 1,500 hours, 1,200 hours, it's a lot. There's no chance to have profitable sales from such units long term.
Their function is security, providing security. As you mentioned, that we have a different function, security. Grzegorz Onichimowski, the President of TSO, PSE, clearly says, unequivocally says, that a new market, capacity market, is present today with a part of a competitiveness. The situation is such that on one hand, we have a traditional power sector transition, renewables, nuclear, PV storage facilities. In time, there are conflicts that arise. I don't know what the decision will be like. We are saying that we have our own core assets, 200 MW units. If there is a demand on the market, then we are able to offer this service, this security service as part of within the technical needs. With the approval, etcetera, that we have.
We are talking about the ring-fencing, the profitability and so on. We have taken account such flexibility for being nationwide because not only profitability arises, that's very important. As you can see, we have no doubt about it, and we guarantee this profitability. However, also, there is this security dimension. We got 24 hours, seven days a week. Everybody wants to have electricity at home. The situation is until there is enough renewables capacity, energy storage, or gas-fired units come up in the right number. We know exactly how difficult it is to get the slots for turbines, production slots for gas-fired turbines or gas-fired engines, and so on. We know how difficult it is to get the supply chains in place in the offshore and the nuclear markets.
These are challenges, therefore, looking from the category of economic and national wisdom. We have those assets that will be utilized for as long as they are required to ensure the security of supply. That's it. That's okay. In our strategy, we said that the transition of the conventional, the classic traditional one, is necessary to carry out the transition. From my point of view, the situation is such that we need to accelerate the transition, we need to accelerate the construction of the onshore facilities. We need to accelerate the construction of nuclear. To scale forward, that's the best solution. That's why the message is from Michał. We are speeding up to maximum degree of energy storage facilities. It's 80%. We're doing our best to get into the new investment project on the offshore side.
We consider this to be the best form of securing cheap energy and the security. Until it's not available, it's not in place, we will not be able to have 100% certainty in Poland that we have delivery or security of supply is secured. We have to use those assets. I don't know what mechanism will be in place, I don't know. President Onichimowski mentioned something like that negotiation is underway, there are works underway, how it can be done past 2028. Definitely, as an organization, that we want to have cooperation, but also specific trading. We're talking about this, that we have those units in place. We are able to present appropriate profitable offerings, so the products such as the energy security can be proposed. Director, anything to respond?
Let me just say that, based on the statement that was quoted, I think there was a separation between the conventional units that Grzegorz mentioned and the heating plant, heating units. Remember, as Grzegorz mentioned, the strategy is still in place. In the heating plans, we are accelerating our investment plan, the CapEx plan, this conversion by 2030 into different types of sources. It's confirmed. The sentence quotation from the report, we are upholding it.
More question.
Second question was related to the CO2, if I remember correctly. You mentioned it, yes. The CO2, talking about the cost of CO2 emissions in the group for 2025 and how much in 2026.
If I remember correctly, group-wide 2025, carbon credit price for cancellations, PLN 3.1 billion includes both TAURON Generation and TAURON Heat.
For 2026, we expect comparable level of. That's it.
Let me comment the third question regarding the UC84 and the potential acquisition of the developers. Let me say that UC84 act is objectively good for everyone. It eliminates the basic problem, which is the virtual booking of a capacity on installations that will never be built, virtual filling up of overcrowding, congesting of a grid, but you are not able to issue further grid connections, or we are issuing for the long-term dates on the distribution side. Because there was virtual investments block us for other grid connection capacity. It's an inefficiency of a system which leads to the inability to implement the investment product. It also leads on our side, not necessarily the good dimensioning of infrastructure versus what should happen.
Therefore, the change of rules in this area is simply an improvement of efficiency of the system, which is objectively good. Therefore, we do hope that the signature under this loan from the president will be made. It doesn't mean that we'll be able to take over smaller developers across the market. In practice, as a matter of fact, for various transactions with developers and the swapping of land and discussion on the grid conditions is already taking place with connection conditions. It may mean the financing of a project for this research will be more difficult for smaller developers. Apart from our in-house development, we are using the so-called DSA, Development Service Agreement, projects that developers prepare products for us to be ready to build. This solution we'll be trying to speed up in the near future.
We are ready to put option here, but either under the project acquisition, project takeover, land swap or, grid connection conditions. Under. Definitely we'll be able to cooperate. Definitely this is an opportunity, not necessarily should be materialized through the takeover of companies. It will brings new opportunities for us.
I understand that, the answers, satisfied you. We can move on. Now.
Piotr Dzięciołowski, good morning from Citibank. Could I ask about the distribution cost in the tariff that you showed of almost PLN 4 billion versus the revenue. Where is the cost in 2026 of a distribution? I'm trying to find an answer to the question whether there is any OpEx gap or outperformance or what's the situation like. And the second question about the distribution.
The 10-year bond in Poland went up 100 basis points or 80 basis points , quite a lot. Strong growth. Will it have an impact upon the automatic revision of weighted average cost of capital in the subject matter? Or maybe not. What's the expectation?
This number, PLN 4.9 billion , what will be your cost? Because this is a revenue. Well, of course, this, we are showing this from, let's say, from the cost and revenue, so the gap. The question is correct one. It's the correct one. Every year, we are trying to make the costs that are within the tariff, which is our revenue, to, in fact, to be not higher than the ones that we are actually incurring. This encompasses two parts. What's included under this item? We can split it.
One is the balancing difference. Luckily, not the ones that we mentioned before in the accounting manner, but what's the co-purchase of electricity for the needs of the balancing difference and the other cost related to the labor costs, cost of works and the other things. Last year, this gap, if we look at both components, was positive, so it was positive for the company. The goal is to have those costs not higher in total, because calculated jointly in total, the purchase of electricity for the balancing difference is not to be higher than the tariff ones. The gap is either 0- or 0+ , but it's not material versus the entire group. You took out, you stripped out the regulatory account because it was.
Yes, yes, because I strip out the regulatory account. What about the WACC?
WACC, will it go up? Because once we had a five-year system after COVID, it went towards one year. There's no true regulatory timeframe. What do you think about the WACC, weighted average cost of capital for the subsequent year in the context of 10-year bonds and now they pass on? Or will we go back to some longer-term regulatory regimes?
One should mention that there's no clear connection. It's not linked automatically. It used to be longer, so the profitability of 10-year bonds, calculated in various ways, calculated different ways, averaged or annual, automatically was included in the WACC when the Charter was signed. It was a mid-level plus the investment bonus premium was added. We moved away from the fluctuation of the bonds year- over- year.
There's no link today. What will we revert to the link? It's hard to say. It's always an argument, discussion with arguments in the discussions with regulators. If this profitability rate would go up, would be sustainable, then it's, you know, what's happening in the world. There's a conflict underway. Definitely this to be valid in longer term should be an argument for discussion with a regulator. There's no automatic mechanism. Will it be a long-term model in place? We would like to have it. We are working on it. We are proposing some solutions to make the regime, the model a long-term one. But as of now, that's the expectation, but as of now, no confirmation from the regulator.
Okay.
Our preference, however, it's also an element that is a challenge for us, gives a motivation, incentive to continuously improve is the long-term distribution tariff. The long-term model, three, five years, we think it will be the most adequate for this segment. We are doing investment project in the three-, five-year term.
Question about President Lot. President Lot recently, the local content, it has to be local content. How much more expensive is local content versus no local content? Because of course, going to the store, we can always buy Chinese or some other components. I don't understand because at the end, it's the customer that pays. PLN 14 billion, if we didn't go into local content, what would be the difference, the number? Or maybe in a descriptive manner, not specific number, in the absolute or generally, holistically.
Generally, if we could give some examples with a tender for meters and transformers, whatever. If you have two bids, local content versus no local.
Local content is one of the best investment projects that investment that this country can do. Let me answer. That's one, the first thing. Situation where if I were to answer that in the short term, we answer the question in a moment, the first thing is such that looking at something more than profit generated tomorrow, but more in the longer term, there's no better investment in our country than investment in the local content that will be. Will have a specific dimension in a year, two, three, five years, 10 years. Because we have examples of Italian, German, French economies that really made big bet on that.
It's not that that's another reason to buy at a higher price from the local people, but to generate such a culture of thinking to support the local solutions. Local distributed sources, also preferable, but to make it function, to be smart and to build this local environment. Second thing, the meter that you asked about today, there's a big difference. I don't wanna show you, but will be results of a tender that we are doing. But there's a difference between the Chinese meters and the European one, European-made. There's a difference in the price. There are security elements and so on and so on. Now we are checking because we also announced a tender because we have in the grid a set of meters from various countries in place.
We can compare the tenders we did before in last year or two years. We are checking how it's gonna be done when we have tighter regulations. This tender should be announced this month, I think, or two. Within two months. Once we have the results, then I'll answer specifically this question during the next conference. We also have examples from the energy storage facilities. Also, the local content can be done because we have local companies that can build it and deliver a certain component. A lot of modules come from China. There are things that there's quite a big price difference and the same type level of quality, but it's difficult to win, and we choose what's the best in terms of price, because we pass on to the customer.
There are certain things that we can see it makes sense regarding the security, durability and the inflow and/or return of funds to the local communities. Most important for me, for those companies to grow, because if such an energy company like ours doesn't make sense, its existence doesn't make sense. If there's no customer, there's no electricity consumption, it doesn't make sense for it to operate. In the long term, to deliver electricity and distribution services at reasonable prices, we have to bring about the electrification, at least doubling by 2050 of electricity distributed.
The only solution today to generate this, competitive advantage for the economy and to be able to say that we are able to give businesses, but also the society, low cost of distribution services and electricity, of course, but distribution mostly, we have to increase the volume of electricity distributed.
Thank you very much.
Okay. Please.
Janusz Maruszewski, Strefa Inwestorów, Investor Zone. Congratulations on excellent results, excellent earnings. That's one thing. Looking at the implementation of a strategy announced around a half year ago, it seems that in the number of areas you are ahead of schedule in the installed capacity or renewables capacity or the financing area or the dividend area, which of course is makes us happy.
In the first of the two questions, what made you make the decision as a Management Board to recommend the payout of a dividend practically for years versus the deadline planned in the strategy? The responsible business proper social responsibility earnings first of all. Some of you met us, we had meetings directly after announcing the strategy, and systematically afterwards, one of you asked. It was an hour after the announcement of the strategy, "When can we check whether the strategy is being delivered?" I think you asked about it. We said, "In a quarter, we'll meet when we present the reports, quarterly report, and we'll. It's the best time to check whether we deliver." That's the DNA of this company.
What we try to do, and I think we managed to implement it, but it's you need to deliver every day. Therefore, we are not shifting the decision for later, even if they are difficult decisions, risky, but we want to face it and deliver. This dividend is a long discussion that we were conducting, because we are aware of the fact that we've paid out the dividend today three years ahead of the time. We'll be expecting dividend from in the subsequent years, as President Surma mentioned. It's most important to have it stable, predictable, and so on. We also said as follows, that as management board, that aware of the fact that we are to do the deliver the security and deliver cheap distribution service and energy, electricity.
We are a company that is being listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The shares went up again, so we are responsible. I just looked at it. We're just responsible for the fact that investors that entrusted their money with us should have a benefit out of it. We're the stock-listed public company. By definition, it should be capable of paying out a dividend, and this is our Management Board's obligation, duty and will, ambition.
Second question, to make it more detailed. Is this a one-off, because 2025 was a record-breaking year, or should we expect a change of a dividend policy? Because the one announced in strategy is 2028.
Krzysztof is a bigger diplomat regarding the finance, so he will explain it better than myself.
Well, as for Grzegorz's part, he responded to this question, answered that question.
We are assuming, and that's our ambition, to not make it a one-off event. We repeat it during each quarterly earnings report. If we did make a decision to pay out the dividend, we don't want to be a one-off. Of course here, this diplomacy that Grzegorz mentioned requires us to say that we always have a caveat and say, depending upon financial situation. Today, we have a crisis worldwide. We don't know at the end of the day how long it will take, over what time frame it'll have an impact upon the condition, not so much of the group, but the whole country, and then indirectly on the condition of the group. Position of the group. Let me put it this way, we'd like to have it. That's the ambition, that it's a recurring event.
Of course, we reserve make a caveat that depending upon the appropriate liquidity and financial results, that will be determined. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Please.
Good morning. Two questions. First one, what limitation, what curtailment of renewables production you expect this year, more or less than last year through redispatching and self-curtailment? Second thing, I'd like to ask about more, for more information about this tender, CCGT, OCGT Jaworzno. Those tenders mid-April, what are these for? This is under the, turnkey solution or a split, delivery of, turbine and other works. The third thing, if we could, say a few words more about the CapEx for 2026. President Surma mentioned, the growth, but can you give an amount, its structure by segment?
A small question at the end, the group still incurs losses on the prosumers settlements in the net metering formula. If so, what order of magnitude is it? Thank you very much.
If I understood correctly, the first question was regarding curtailment of renewables production due to the non-market dispatching or self-curtailment. What we seem to expect this year. Let's start with the non-market dispatching. It's difficult to foresee, but trend is very clear, growing one. Rising share of renewables, that's my opinion, will lead to a more redispatching until the more utility scale, large scale, battery energy storage systems. How much of it? You have to have a crystal ball to the decision of the operator. It's difficult to plan. Regarding the self-curtailment, I assume the level will be comparable, maybe a bit higher than this year.
The balance will be an increase in curtailment. I think we might, but they might even slightly go up regarding the self-curtailment. Regarding the market-based redispatching, it's difficult to say.
Second question regarding the tender that's underway, OCGT Jaworzno, we decided to carry it out in a separate contract for the delivery of a turbine. The formula that we are contracting is the delivery of a turbine, gas-fired turbine, along with the stack and the ancillary systems. The long-term support, long-term service agreement, 15 years for turbines services, that ensures the performance during the capacity markets. Following this contracting will be the key tender for the general contractor, which will develop, will build. Mid-April, the bids with the delivery dates for the delivery of the turbine sequences.
First of all, we determine the selection of the turbine. Tender allows for single turbine, two turbine system, but will have a total capacity of in certain range. It's also possible to install outdoor, all installations directly outdoor and also the indoor system within a full building, traditional power plant, at the done. Based on our knowledge, what's the technical decision regarding the turbine, we'll be able to precisely define the scope of the construction work, construction work that we are facing. That's the sequence of tender, and a key priority is securing the slot for the winter final delivery date. That's the sequence, first deliver or secure the delivery of the turbine. Third question regarding the CapEx and 2026 outlook. As Krzysztof mentioned, we assume the level of CapEx will go up.
Regarding details, that will be dependent on the details, distribution of CapEx in the generation related to the tender for the gas-fired turbine and our renewables activities. Regarding potential acquisitions or acquiring a new product, as of today are not included in the forecast. These expenditures will go up. To give you some indication, it's possible to have seven, digit seven in front regarding our CapEx. A significant increase, but it'll depend upon the renewables and contracting on the TAURON Generation subsidiary.
There's a question about prosumers losses on the net metering. If I remember correctly, the total losses and costs incurred due to the prosumers energy being fed into the grid covered by the supply segment was PLN 750 million per annum. PLN 750 million losses in the net metering?
The total cost and losses that are related to the prosumers feeding energy into the grid. We have distribution fees, the cost of a so-called storage, so PLN 750 million. How do you cover that? From the margin generated from sales. There's a part of the cost that can be incurred by the supply segment.
One of the largest CSR projects that you're conducting, but also indicated that's the part of a very strong transition. Thanks to that, 1.5 billion people in Poland, 400 million people in Poland, but not, these are people that. I meant the net metering. The prosumers that got connected directly by the end of March 2020.
What we have 450,000 customers in the grid and 400,000 as the net-free. 472,000 are prosumers. 1.5 million customers are prosumers. 1.2 million these are net metering customers. They are the first customers that moved away from the economic point of view. These are the majority of customers that have heat pumps, a larger consumption because these are detached houses that have larger consumption. The truth is that according to the model, net metering model, this takes 15 years. In a few years there will be the first changes to the net billing. Net billing is an ideal solution that gives also the possibility to promote dynamic solutions, time-of-use based and so on.
Storage and net metering is a purely promotional effort, encouraging 1.5 million. It's a European level phenomenon to progress the transition. All the prosumers are generating electricity at the same time. We have to buy back this energy, electricity from the customers at a specific price, resell it on the market. Of course, is at a given point in time very cheap or even negative. Then ensure the electricity for those customers in a different time of day. Because the virtual storage being the grid. This balance that the President mentioned fully as it is, but it doesn't mean that we don't have any mitigation actions, activities that include power-to-heat.
That the energy that we pick up from the consumers, not to put on the market at lower prices, but store it. Therefore, we have a program that in Poland takes 15 years. We have to live with what we have. I'm not evaluating, I'm not giving an opinion. It's done. The role of the professionals in this area is to make sure we're taking into account those legal framework. We have as little loss or cost to be passed on to the customers to take advantage of it. That's why we have this business called the heat that we have in place and the transition to the power-to-heat technology. Because thanks to that, throughout summer, the hot water could be heated from the prosumers or PVs frequently at negative prices.
Because as Krzysztof mentioned here, that the number of hours with the negative prices is going up year- over- year.
Let me just add to that. Of course, we are looking from the supply subsidiary, but it's partially mitigated by the distribution segment because those distribution fees that are included in the debt number is the revenue for the distribution that extent constitute the margin of a distribution segment. This globally, this figure from the consultant point of view is a bit lower, but it's a big problem. That's true, but we are trying to deal with as the CEO mentioned. Thank you very much.
Let's move on to the questions from our viewers who are patiently waiting, and there's quite a few of those questions. Let's move on to the question asked by the via the forum.
First one. What's your opinion of a consensus for 2026 at the EBITDA of PLN 6.5 billion ?
We absolutely don't enter the discussion regarding the competencies of the analysts. I wouldn't afford, you do such excellent to do that. I'm not able to say anything about that. My hats off to you. I'm reading so much. That's it. Thank you.
Next question. What do you think about the attractiveness level of investments in the storage systems, energy storage? Polenergia recently gave up on the battery energy storage system despite having the grant subsidy award. Level of internal rate of return is assumed today for the battery energy systems for with the subsidy and without the subsidy.
Regarding energy storage facility itself, we say we are having various products in our portfolio.
Some of them have subsidies, some of them have contracts from the capacity market. However, as part of energy storage facilities, there's also the economy of scale required the power supply point. The less economic, the ones that are small are relatively cheap due to the cheaper power evacuation line and the certain economic scale that says the certain capacity jumps that means that not fully linear economic scale. The IRR is diverse, is variable. So also the faith in the probability of a storage is based on the perception, the variability of short-term variability of prices. So spread between the two highest and lowest hour during the four hours like that, depending upon the system set up. We are dealing with an evolving power system that will have more and more renewables on one hand.
On the other hand, the storages will be auto-cannibalizing themselves. The more storage in the system, the lower the profitability of a product. We are trying to accelerate the implementation of this project, but to a large extent, use the professional sources and using these elements based on those, on our assumption regarding the spreads, we can see that this product is able to generate a return in the double-digit IRR depending upon what is the subsidy. This IRR could be closer to the double-digit limit or maybe reach higher, depending on the factors, higher double digits. The later they are commissioned, the less optimum configuration will be, the longer the grid connection. It's more difficult to build it. Look in this market, certainly low entry barrier for the storage.
You need grid conditions, relatively small size, small lands, small areas. Relatively easy process. Not all storage systems will be built in Poland. Only the best ones will be made. The ones that will get preferential financing of the optimum configuration. The natural process is that some of those product will not be implemented.
However, it's difficult to compare sometimes investment product because for those who only have energy source systems and no customers, they can, the return could be different. When there's a situation when we're building the energy storage systems, and they are used for to optimize the profile costs. The storage itself may have different roles. That's why business case could vary. We have 6 million customers. We're able to use the storage system in a number of places.
That's why Michał mentioned that we are speeding up and want to be number one on this market to have the largest potential capacity and benefits of storage to take advantage of.
How many new renewables and energy storage capacity will be in commission in 2026?
The decision that we've taken, first of all, the stage of implementing our strategy and the investment decisions that were made in 2025 and beginning of this year require certain construction timeframe. The company didn't have too many investment projects prepared once we joined it that could be implemented already in 2026. Therefore, the majority of the effects that we'll describe to you will take place in 2027, 2028 because of these actions that were realistically launched after the strategy was announced.
2026, storage systems will be building another 16 MW, and partly the production will be commenced by the Miejska Górka Wind Farm, 190 MW. This will be the production from the startup, and the actual sales will start this year and the commissioning, official commissioning next year.
What's the process of contracting for the gas peaker where to on the capacity market? What level of expenditures is expected?
Regarding the process, I already commented on that. Regarding the level of expenditures is a difficult question. In the previous conferences, I told you about the fact that the market-based range could be up to PLN 3 million . It could be per megawatt, it could be a lower amount. This estimate that I gave you was based both on the worldwide benchmarks and our RFIs.
Our market dialogue, and also as well as the opinion of the market advisor position, the gas turbine market is quite dynamic. I couldn't tell you, but historically it was difficult. There are slots, but the market is a seller's market, not the buyer's market. Now, what we'll see, we'll see what the next few months will bring. We're dealing with a big disruption on the gas market, which on one hand generates certain challenge and difficulty, but for the firm suppliers means the canceled orders. A large portion of orders were to go to the Middle East for some manufacturers. The situation may be changing rapidly. As of today, I uphold the range that we have, and the bigger, better estimate we'll be able to present to you during the next earnings conference once we complete the tender for the winter.
What impact on this year's earnings to expect stemming from the macro repercussions related to the Iran war?
It's worth saying that we have quite conservative approach to the hedging policy. The majority of positions we already have hedged. The impact of the conflict in 2026 will not be material, will be negligible. However, it's worth saying that we have such weekly meetings. Every week, practically, we are monitoring the situation related to the conflict, the impact on the commodities, oil, gas, coal. We are observing what is the cross-border exchange. I mentioned April, we saw a lot of pushing out of electricity to the different countries, to Germany, Slovakia, which led to the higher generation, higher consumption of coal, and decline of inventory levels.
We noticed also that the mining companies are selling easier and contracting the coal inventory sales. However, we are not afraid of such situation in 2026. We, as I said, we have finalized, and we are monitoring situation on ongoing basis.
In 2025 in fourth quarter , what was the revenue from the balancing market and the electricity buyback market?
I think I can say regarding the conventional segment, the total result on the balancing capacity and buybacks came in 2025, about PLN 650 million, in Q4 about PLN 160 million. The other segments, renewables and heat, was accordingly less. PLN 21 million in renewables for the whole year in the buybacks, PLN 31.5 million in the last quarter. However, heat, PLN 20 million regarding the part related to buybacks.
In the last quarter, PLN 3.4 million.
Request to leave, keep it behind between us, yes? Off the record.
Do you see the risk of cap change in the distribution?
Well, regarding the regulatory regime, we already spoke about it. We have a regulatory model in place, so it's difficult to take into account the change risk. We assume the capital will be maintained, but the Efficient Transformation Charter mentioned specific revenue. We have expansion plan updated every now and then, when no major differences we assumed here. If we ask about the WACC for this year already been announced, 9.5%. In the subsequent years, let us remember, we have 7.5% +1 percentage point, and we assume that at least these are the values will be maintained.
Do you think about entering the data center business as a co-investor?
Definitely yes. Well, we are open to business opportunities. Number one, welcome everyone, all investors, including data center investors where TAURON is operating. Just to give you an example, during the conference in Jaworzno, we presented a specific seven or eight such spots where here now you can build data centers. This is an official offering proposal. This is Upper Silesia. We know where we have sites, where we have capacity. There is capacity between 50 MW and 300 MW available here now or in a moment. So in many cases, there's also a heat possible can be retrieved. So a data center investor who wants to find a part invest, then it's on the websites of the distribution line of business. You can find it, you can contact us and build it.
If data centers came to us and told us that they are building such a source, want to discuss with us, there's nothing against it to start thinking about a business opportunity, but in the power part. Because we don't have knowledge about the construction of data centers. We know about the heat recovery, heat collection, we can use it. We know we are experts in electricity generation. As an energy partner or power partner under selection model, why not? On the other hand, we, as production companies, are building electricity for themselves for our own needs. Nothing against us securing some profitability for our needs. With 6 million customers, we have room to work in. The business is open, we are open. Actively, we are not.
We are looking for investors in our area of operations partners, but actively, we are not entering as an investor into data center business. If it is a business opportunity, why not?
Okay. Piasecki, questions on the earnings. Question about the hedging of CO2 in percentage terms for 2026 and 2027. What's the group hedging? And the second, what's the level of fixed cost does the management board assume for entire 2026?
Regarding the first part of the question, as I said, a quite conservative approach to the hedging policy, so we secure upfront our carbon credits. For this year we are fully hedged, fully covered. That's all.
In fixed costs, well, we do not give detailed forecast. Generally, if we were to give you the level cost, we would disclose the one part of the forecast. I will not answer this question.
Another question, I can tell, taking into account our energy mix, generation mix, I have an impression that the share of gas is so low versus coal, that we don't expect any material change versus last year. At such a level of installed capacity in gas, this impact is negligible.
No more online questions. Please, anybody from the audience? Ladies and gentlemen, therefore, let's finish. Thank you very much to the audience and those of you who watched us online. Let me remind you that the broadcast from today's conference, earnings conference, will be available on our website. Thank you very much.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you to the management board. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We are at your service here in a moment. Just thank you.
Of course, Management Board is available for your questions and discussions for journalists as well.