In January, Innogy will raise electricity prices for roughly one-tenth of its customers. This means that from the beginning of the year, this segment of the customer base will pay the government’s capped electricity prices, while the average household will pay about CZK 500 per month more than they do now.
Customers with fixed prices, which are the majority, will not be affected by the increase. The company will not change gas prices, said Innogy spokesman Martin Chalupský. The company is the fourth largest electricity supplier in the Czech Republic, with about 600,000 customers.
“From the beginning of January, the basic electricity price list, Electricity Standard, will be adjusted for customers with an indefinite-term contract, i.e., for customers who do not have a fixed price. The prices of power and electricity in all tariffs for Standard have already exceeded the price ceiling, so from January 1, we will cap the price of electricity for customers,” Chalupský said.
According to him, an ordinary household should pay an extra CZK 500 monthly. In practice, he stressed that the price increase would affect less than 10 percent of clients.
“The vast majority of Innogy customers with electricity consumption are still under the price ceiling and have fixed lower prices from the past,” he added.
Innogy is already informing its clients of the price changes and will send them a new backup plan and price list applicable to their point of consumption, including a price comparison of the original and new capped prices, in the coming weeks.
In October, the government set the price caps at CZK 6,000 per megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity, including VAT, and CZK 3,000 per MWh of gas. Distribution charges have to be added to this.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) said at the time that the cost of this measure would be around CZK 130 billion.
New price lists for consumers for next year, based on purchases of energy commodities on the market, have already been presented by the most prominent suppliers in the Czech Republic.
ČEZ, E.ON, and Pražská energetika will increase prices for customers with open-ended contracts to the level of the government’s caps.
For average consumers of these largest electricity suppliers, this will increase their fees by several hundred crowns per month. The increase does not affect customers who have a fixed-price contract.
Prices for end customers will still be significantly lower than current real market prices, which are based on the wholesale market price of both commodities. According to the power companies, the capping will save the average household about 40 percent compared to market prices for power.