29/12/2004

Electricity prices to go down in the south as of January

PÍSEK / BRNO - Jihočeská energetika is changing its name to E.ON as of January 1. The JČE and JME brands will disappear from South Bohemian and Moravian markets and the group of several companies will be brought under a single E.ON brand.

"As part of the process of consolidating its capital participations and with regard to the development of European energy industry legislation, E.ON is undergoing major restructuring as of January 1. European legislation requires all participants in the energy industry market with +100 thousand customers to go through a process of unbundling, i.e. the legal separation of electricity trading and distribution," said spokesperson Aleš Řiháček.

What it means is that as of January 1, 2007 at the latest, no single company will be allowed to hold a license for both distributing and trading of electricity. The legal requirements are thus being satisfied two years ahead of schedule.

How does this change affect the customer? "The current restructuring doesn't require the customer to take any action whatsoever. The new companies are the legal successors of the current companies with respect to the transferred part of the corporation and they assume all rights and obligations. All customers will be sufficiently notified of the contractual relationship change. The only change the customer will notice will be the new logos on invoices and other documents," said Aleš Řiháček.

He added that the changes have nothing to do with the development of electricity prices. "The price for households is still being set by the Energy Regulation Office's price verdict. The ERO price verdict reflected the changes in E.ON by merging the rates for the area of South Bohemia and Moravia. For customers in South Bohemia, this change will be positive, since they will be the only region to actually experience a price reduction (by 5.8 percent on average), said the E.ON spokesperson. Up to now, the prices in the two regions were different and the JČE ones were the highest in the country.

Source: Listy Písecka