Stoen's nom de guerre

Energy distributor Stoen, operating on the Warsaw market, has rebranded itself and is now called RWE Stoen. "Apart from our local strength, we need international experience and the renowned RWE brand to deal with changes on the market," said Janusz Moroz, a member of the company's management board.

Stoen has been owned by the German energy powerhouse RWE Energy since 2002. It is one of two privatized energy distribution firms on the market (the other being Vattenfall Distribution).

The change comes less than two months before the official liberalization of the Polish energy market and the unbundling of the production, transmission and distribution sectors. "Only 15 percent of the distribution market is privatized so I don't expect a battle of offers," Moroz said. He pointed out that privatization, rather than the ongoing consolidation process, should be the key to liberalizing the market.

"If companies have the same owner [the State Treasury], how can we expect them to compete against each other?"

Moroz doesn't expect a revolution on the Polish market after July 1, when the liberalization comes into force. "We count on around five percent of customers leaving their operators for new ones," he claims.

Nevertheless, the head of RWE Stoen's energy acquisition department, Andrzej Modzelewski sees great potential in the Polish energy market. With energy consumption estimated at a level of 2,700 kWh a year, the average Pole still consumes around half as much energy as the average German. The RWE Stoen expert also points to another factor. "We have good economic growth and there is a relation between the growth of the economy and energy consumption."