Czech-based power company CEZ AS (BAACEZ.PR) will lift prices for its Czech residential customers by no more than 10% next year, and by 15% for commercial customers, the company's Chairman Martin Roman said in a local newspaper Tuesday.
In Hospodarske Noviny, Roman said price growth will be limited despite prices for baseload electricity having jumped 27% on the year to over EUR70 a megawatt.
The reasons for the limited price rise are that about 45% of the household price is the cost of distribution, which is regulated and growing annually only in single digits and about one third of power for 2009 household sales was priced at EUR57/MW as part of the "compound product" sold on the Prague power exchange at the end of last year, he said.
Roman said the stronger Czech koruna, which has firmed 16% to the euro in the last 12 months, contains wholesale prices for power, which are denominated and sold in euros.