Poland expects power prices to go up

The Environment Minister of Poland, Maciej Nowicki has said that the cost of electricity could rise by fifty to seventy per cent if the European Union went ahead with proposals to make power generating firms purchase their carbon emission permits five years from now.

The Environment Minister expressed worries that Poland would suffer immensely from the plans which were announced in January.  The Polish Government has objected to these plans since almost all of its power is generated from coal-fired plants which will see the power producers in Poland required to buy a big number of carbon emission permits, more than other countries in the European Union.

Maciej Nowicki also expressed fears that the proposals would lower the living standards of Poles and they would object to that. He further revealed that the amount of money that power producers in Poland would need to purchase all their carbon emission permits from 2013 would be around four to five euros annually and this would lead to an electricity tariff rise of fifty to seventy per cent. This would end up spurring inflation and hinder the capacity of Poland to start using the Euro sometime after 2010.

The Polish Environment Minister hoped their views would be taken into consideration and something done about it. In the proposal by the European Commission whose intention is to reduce carbon emissions which are also referred to as heat-trapping gases and which take the blame for global warming, power producers will have to pay for their carbon dioxide certificates from the year 2013.