|
Prague, 7 June 2000
- Around 20 activists of Greenpeace from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and Austria protest today near the nuclear power station Temelín against the fact, that the Czech de facto monopoly electricity utility CEZ exports electricity under the price. The activists attached banners with "STOP DUMPING" and "STOP TEMELÍN" on two high voltage electricity poles. Between them, large letters showed "VÝVOZ POD CENOU" - Czech for "EXPORT BELOW PRICE". The goal of the action is to warn the Czech public, that electricity from Temelín will go into export, and that from that the largest part will most likely be sold under production price to Germany.
"When a dangerous plant like Temelín will be started up only to export all its electricity under price to Germany, this is complete madness," states Jan Haverkamp from Greenpeace.
The main argument over the last years for building Temelín was always a lack of electricity. At present, however, the Czech Republic produces such a large overcapacity, that CEZ has to export a considerable part of its production to Germany. This export is already larger than the amount of electricity that Temelín once will produce (1).
Greenpeace already warned several times that this is dumping, because CEZ exports the electricity for less than CZK 600 (DM 32) per megawatthour (MWh) - this is CZK 200 less, than the production costs of this electricity (2). The income from the export of electricity all in all does not cover the costs for the direct production and other attached services like dispatching, transmission and reserves. Part of the production costs is at present covered by cross-financing from income from Czech consumers.
"Czech consumers subsidise from their own pocket the export of cheap electricity to Germany and Italy," warns Haverkamp, and points out, that Czech firms in this way even involuntarily support their competitors abroad.
When Temelín goes on line, its electricity has to be exported even more below price. According the report from the international commission of experts, that assessed the rentability of Temelín for the Czech government last year, Temelín is expected to produce electricity against a price of 760 CZK/MWh (in this price, however, are not included the so called sunk costs - that is the money that was spent on investments on Temelín before that time). CEZ will have to export every megawatthour from Temelín therefore with a loss of more than CZK 200 (4) (5).
"Stopping the development of Temelín now will be cheaper, than pushing on with the project," say Haverkamp. "It is even possible to save more money now, when Temelín is stopped before the reactor is loaded and has become radioactive."
Václav Vašku
Press speaker Greenpeace CZ
Further information:
Václav Vašku, mobile telephone: +420.603.414 739
Jan Haverkamp (English, German), mobil: +420.604.257 822
internet: http://www.greenpeace.cz
Notes for the editor:
(1) According to official sources, CEZ plans to export this year 9 to 12 terawatthours (TWh), which is around a quarter of its total production and around 20% of the total electricity production in the Czech Republic. Temelín will produce in 2003 in two blocks a total of around 11,5 TWh.
(2) The average production price of electricity is according to the latest analyses of the Ministry of Industry and Trade 864 CZK/MWh (= 44 DM / MWh). CEZ stated, that it exported in the year 1999 5,675 TWh electricity and received for that around 3771 billion Czech crowns (CZK). The average price therefore was CZK 660 per megawatthour (= 34 DM/MWh).
(3) The current price level for which CEZ exported electricity in January 2000 moved around 530 CZK / MWh (28 DM/MWh), which is covering around half of its production costs.
(4) In the CEZ report on the building of the NPP Temelín from the year 1998, the number stated was even higher - 992 CZK / MWh.
(5) Radko Pavlovec e.a., Zpráva o exportu spolecnosti CEZ a.s. - Podezrení z cenoveho dumpingu, kveten 2000; http://www.temelin.cz/dumping/
|
