Prague's public energy company announces major price hike

With inflation ingrained throughout the Czech economy and global energy supplies particularly vulnerable to uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it was only a matter of time before consumers felt the impact of higher energy prices.

Now, Pražská plynárenská, the publicly-owned energy provider for the Czech capital serving around 425,000 separate consumption points, has announced an average 39 percent increase in gas prices, to take effect in June.

The company has emphasized that customers with fixed-price contracts and products not linked to its basic price list will not be affected in any way by the price hike. Affected households will be those using the standard price list, or products linked to this price list.

Pražská plynárenská customers should therefore check their plan to see whether they’ll be affected by the change.

For a household using natural gas for cooking, in an apartment with an annual consumption of 0.4 megawatt-hours, monthly bills will go up by CZK 36. Households that use gas for cooking and heating water will likely see much higher increases, potentially of hundreds of crowns per month.

“We waited to make this change until the end of the heating season in order to reduce the real impact on customers,” said Pražská plynárenská. But even though summer is coming, gas price increases could still make a big difference to living costs.

The price hike comes just days after Pražská plynárenská asked Prague City Hall for a loan of up to CZK 2 billion to help it buy gas to keep in reserve for next winter. The loan was approved by city councilors on Tuesday pending a final decision to be made at the end of April.

The company is stocking higher gas reserves than usual due to uncertainty around supplies caused by the war in Ukraine. Russia supplies a large majority of the natural gas used by the Czech Republic, so disrupted supplies would cause significant complications.

Prague City Hall representatives were quick to downplay any fears that Pražská plynárenská's loan request was a sign of financial problems for the energy giant. Councilors said the large sum was needed due to cash flow issues rather than as the result of any structural financial problems.

Not all gas companies are expected raise prices, while some have already done so. Innogy, for example, increased its prices by 19 percent last month, and said it does not plan any further increases. ČEZ is also not expected to raise prices in the near future.