CEZ has successfully sold another part of the "rainbow", which will be followed by a second tender

All distribution companies accepted the offer from CEZ for another three products included in the "rainbow energy" package. This package follows and complements the first, cheapest product, so called "yellow electricity, which is sold for 73.4 hellers per kWh. Distribution companies used the second offer almost to the full by confirming their intention to buy a total of 7.6 TWh. The remaining part of the electricity will be sold by means of another public tender, as it was done in the case of the first product whose average price grew, thanks to customer demand, from the put-up price of 73.4 hellers per kWh up to 76.1 hellers/kWh. The potential entrants of the public tender are distribution companies, authorised customers and licensed dealers.

In the second stage CEZ offers three new products so called green electricity - a broadband supply of electricity over the whole year on weekdays, sold at the price of 88 hellers./kWh, so called red electricity monthly broadband electricity supply sold at an average price of 82 hellers per kWh, and so called blue electricity monthly broadband electricity volume supplied on weekdays at an average price of less than 90 hellers./kWh. If we take into consideration the progress of annual supply, when the larger volume of the more expensive electricity is supplied in autumn and winter months, it is obvious that the average prices will be higher, but only by hellers. However, the price of all these products are bellow this year's average price, which the regulator set at 97 hellers per kWh.

The first product to have been offered by CEZ to the distribution companies at the beginning of September was so called yellow electricity. This is a broadband supply of electricity over the whole of next year (a continuous supply of unvarying electricity volume 24 hours a day, 365 days a year) at the price of 73 hellers per kWh, generated by the most cost-effective sources nuclear and coal-fired thermal power plants. The cost of similar energy supply in the markets west of the Czech Republic, or on the Polish market, ranges between 78 - 80 hellers/kWh. All addressed distributors of electricity, with the sole exception of Severomoravske energetiky (SME), decided to accept this offer of cheap electricity. The as yet unused electricity volume, approx. 2.6 TWh, was subsequently offered in all potential interested parties in a public tender. The total of 16 entrants registered for the tender, 5 of whom were successful, and the average price went up to 76.1 hellers per kWh.

The CEZ offer is preferentially targeted at distribution companies, because they represent their protected customers who cannot choose their supplier. These account for 70 % of the market, whose demand is to be satisfied by the cheapest supplies from the distributors. The supplied electricity which has not been consumed by the distribution companies will be offered to all other interested parties, as was the case with the above-mentioned product, so called cheapest yellow electricity. The other interested parties include licensed dealers, authorised customers and then again distribution companies. Each of the products CEZ offers has some small electricity volume as a reserve, so that the public tender could be carried out even if all the distributors exercise their right to priority choice. The essential priority of CEZ is to provide a wide range of products, so that each potential client could choose.

All these products are included in the new CEZ offer for the next year which CEZ prepared for its customers in connection with the newly opened market. Each product is characterised by a specific colour and, more importantly, is priced differently. Each colour represents not only a different product, but also comes to represent one particular part of the production output of CEZowned power plants that have contributed to the supply. CEZ offers these colours in sequence and the launch of the last product is planned for the beginning of November this year. The four products which CEZ offered so far account for more than 60% of this year's electricity volume that CEZ has supplied to the domestic market this year.

Ladislav Kriz, CEZ Press Officer

12. 10. 2001