WARSAW, April 17 (Reuters) - The maximum energy price for Polish households will be set at 500 zlotys ($123) per megawatt-hour (MWh) for the second half of 2024, according to a draft bill posted on the government's website late on Tuesday, up from 412 zlotys per MWh currently.
Energy prices have been the key element of uncertainty in inflation projections in Poland after a drop in overall price growth to 2.0% in March from a peak of 18.4% in February 2023.
Economists expect inflation will rise again as the government withdraws measures aimed at softening the impact of higher prices on households, but uncertainty over energy prices has made the scale of the rebound hard to predict.
This uncertainty has led the central bank to take a cautious approach on monetary policy, and its key interest rate has been on hold at 5.75% since October.
"Moving away from support for consumers of electricity, gas, and heat must be implemented gradually, taking into account primarily the situation of households that are most affected by the increase in bills for these utilities," the draft bill said.
It said that, in addition to the new regulated level for energy prices, a new "energy voucher" would be introduced.
"The energy voucher will be a cash benefit for households whose income does not exceed 2,500 zlotys ($614) per person in a single-person household or 1,700 per person in a multi-person household," the draft bill said.
ING analysts said they expected the price increase would mean household energy bills would rise by about 13%, adding 0.6 percentage points to inflation.
"At this stage, the project is still general, but it confirms our previous expectations that there will be no sudden increase in energy prices for households in 2H24," ING said in a note.
($1 = 4.0721 zlotys) (Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Mark Potter)
