Czechs overpay by more than one billion crowns a year due to unsuitable electricity tariffs

Czech households may be unnecessarily paying more than CZK 1.3 billion a year for electricity in total. The reason is an inappropriately selected distribution tariff. A large share of households have an unfavourable tariff setting, causing them to overpay by hundreds of crowns annually. Most of them are not even aware that they can choose a different tariff. This follows from an analysis by bezDodavatele, seen by the Czech News Agency (ČTK).

As part of its analysis, the company reviewed 1,132 household metering points with the most common single-rate tariffs, D01d and D02d. According to data from the Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ), these tariffs are used by around 65 percent of households out of a total of 6.5 million metering points. However, the analysis found that a large share of people have these tariffs set unfavourably, resulting in unnecessary overpayments of hundreds of crowns per year.

Most households do not address their distribution tariff at all. They therefore remain on a setting that may have been advantageous years ago when consumers first arranged their electricity supply, but which now unnecessarily increases their electricity costs. “We were surprised by how often we encounter this. We expected isolated cases, but instead found that more than half of the households analysed could save money. This is neither a change of supplier nor an investment. In many cases, it is enough to set the distribution tariff correctly,” said Libor Holub, CEO of bezDodavatele.

The differences between individual tariffs are not negligible. The analysis showed that if up to 53 percent of households had their distribution tariff set more appropriately, they would save an average of CZK 728 per year. In some cases, the savings exceeded several thousand crowns annually.

If the results were modelled across all household metering points on D01d and D02d tariffs, based on ERÚ tariff statistics, this would concern approximately up to 1.9 million metering points. The total savings potential would therefore exceed CZK 1.3 billion annually, according to the model calculation.

According to the analysis, the greatest savings potential was found in Prague. In the PREdistribuce distribution area, changing the tariff would make sense for 68 percent of the households analysed. In the EG.D distribution area, which covers mainly southern Bohemia and Moravia as well as parts of the Vysočina, Zlín and Olomouc regions, this applied to 51.5 percent of households, while in the ČEZ Distribuce area it concerned 46.3 percent. While Prague has the highest share of households affected by the issue, the highest average savings from changing tariffs were achieved in the ČEZ distribution area, at CZK 833 per year.

As bezDodavatele pointed out, customers can easily request a change to their distribution tariff from their supplier. “The distributor usually makes the tariff change within several days after the application is approved, so consumers do not have to wait long. The biggest problem is not arranging the change, but finding out in the first place that a person is paying unnecessarily more than they need to. That is precisely why we created a calculator where people can quickly check whether they have the right distribution tariff,” Holub added.