Last week, the government submitted the approved version of the bill on measures for Czechia’s transition to low-carbon energy to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic for consideration. The law is intended to provide a basis for supporting ČEZ in the construction of a new unit at the Dukovany nuclear power plant.
The government has advanced preparations for the law, under which a power purchase agreement for electricity from a low-carbon source is to be concluded with the partly state-owned company ČEZ. Following a series of government amendments, the proposal was submitted to lawmakers on 11 August.
The text submitted to lawmakers still lists 1 January 2021 as the expected effective date. Despite being a government priority, this deadline is relatively ambitious. A number of comments have already emerged during the discussion, and it cannot be ruled out that the bill will be heatedly debated in the Chamber of Deputies. This could extend the time needed to consider the bill.
The new proposal also incorporates comments arising from discussions by the government’s Legislative Council. For example, it objected to the fact that an earlier version of the law did not address a situation in which wholesale electricity prices were higher than the purchase price (i.e. electricity prices for consumers would decrease).
The bill therefore newly states that “…; if the difference is positive, where the expected market price of electricity from a low-carbon generating facility on organised markets is higher than the realisation price, such positive difference shall be used to cover the costs of financing measures for the transition to low-carbon energy, while the distribution system service price component and the transmission system service price component for electricity support under the Act on Supported Energy Sources shall be reduced by the amount of such positive difference.”
Change and reversal on end-consumer charges
The bill has undergone a number of changes, particularly in the area of financing by final electricity consumers. The initial version of the law envisaged that charges would be collected according to reserved capacity, or rather according to circuit breaker size.
After the proposal was first published, this method of financing was criticised. It would disadvantage consumers with low consumption but relatively high reserved capacity. Following the criticism, the proposal was amended and it appeared that any financing would be ensured in a similar way to support for renewable energy sources (note: in the case of renewable support, the charge is set according to the level of consumption).
However, the final proposal submitted to the Chamber of Deputies reverted to the original proposal, meaning that charges should be set according to reserved capacity, or rather circuit breaker size.
This article is a machine translation of the Czech original and has not yet been fully reviewed. In case of any doubt, please refer to the Czech version.