What to expect from electricity and gas prices in Czechia in 2025? Centropol’s view – part II

Three years have passed since the collapse of Bohemia Energy, one of the largest electricity suppliers. For hundreds of thousands of customers who opted for three-year fixed-price contracts at the time, a key decision-making moment is now approaching. At the same time, a longer period has passed since the 2021 energy crisis, but the market still bears its after-effects. This is compounded by growing pressure on the regulated component of electricity prices due to the necessary investment in infrastructure, which affects costs for households and businesses.

The second part of the interview with Jiří Matoušek, member of the board and marketing director of Centropol.

Do you have any specific recommendations for customers on how to secure a better electricity and gas price?

We inform not only our clients about responsible energy use and create a number of practical calculators that visualise the impact on both consumption and household finances. These range from small things such as replacing light bulbs to complex calculations of heating costs according to the technology chosen. We strive to help the public manage and understand their energy consumption. During the energy crisis, we launched the www.setricelecesko.cz project and also introduced the Energy Expedition educational programme in primary schools, which we are very pleased about and which is becoming increasingly popular.

As regards entering into contracts, I would like to urge consumers not to be tempted by seemingly advantageous offers from various energy intermediaries and not to sign anything in haste or under pressure. I recommend always consulting exceptionally favourable offers with their current supplier. That supplier will generally make a counteroffer. The energy market is in the midst of a major transformation, so it is worth recalling not only 2021, when a number of energy suppliers that were unable to meet their obligations to clients exited the market. Today, we supply energy at Centropol to thousands of such clients.

How are you preparing for possible future energy crises or supply disruptions?

The impacts of any further energy crisis are mitigated by regularly and gradually purchasing commodities for the customer portfolio more than one year ahead of consumption, securing supply through own generation sources with the possibility of using storage and with sufficient balancing energy capacity. All this is part of a safe, conservative procurement and supply management strategy. In the case of natural gas, it is important to place emphasis on sufficient storage capacity.

How is your company preparing for the possible digitalisation of the energy sector, for example the rollout of smart meters or involvement in smart grids?

Digitalisation and innovation in general must bring demonstrable benefits to clients. We are testing new product offerings with them, and this year we will launch an interesting product, the details of which we will keep to ourselves and our clients for now.

Do you plan to offer new services, such as consumption management or data sharing with customers?

Yes, we will launch solutions from this category this year. We are implementing a number of test products in this area.

How do you view the trend of community energy? Do you plan to offer customers specific solutions in this area?

As I mentioned in another part of the interview, a change, innovation or new product must bring demonstrable benefits to clients, especially financial ones. In the case of community energy, or electricity sharing, we assess the impacts on specific metering points and model pricing and product offerings for households. Electricity sharing itself, given that in most cases it involves sharing from photovoltaic power plants, does not yet fulfil the basic principle of innovation in our models.

Community energy in the Czech Republic is only at its beginning. The Electricity Data Centre, in the first three months of its existence up to 11 November, registered 5 120 generation facilities and 5 508 metering points. Practice may show that the expectation of savings on electricity costs will not be met for most participants in sharing. For one thing, a metering point located away from the generation facility, and thus using the distribution grid to obtain electricity from the shared source, must pay distribution charges.

Another pitfall is realistically matching the timing of generation and consumption, because shared electricity, like any other electricity, must in fact be consumed at the moment it is generated and enters the power system. Although this is essentially an accounting operation, because it is impossible to distinguish in the grid which source the electricity comes from, sharing takes place in such a way that the sharing metering point draws from the grid, at a given moment, the volume of electricity produced by the sharing generation facility. The irregular supply of electricity from many sources therefore fundamentally increases the importance of storage, i.e. “storing” electricity in batteries or in another form of energy. And this makes the “sharing transaction” more expensive. Additional costs naturally also include changes in consumption profiles.