Czech energy regulator reportedly at risk in spat over renewables support

Relations at the top of the Czech administration dealing with energy policy appear to have gone into meltdown. The situation is so bad that the Minister of Industry and Trade and the head of the country’s independent energy regulator are trading verbal blows in public over the Internet over procedures for clearing billions of crowns in state support for renewables.

Jan Mládek, photo: Filip Jandourek

Relations between Czech Minister of Industry and Trade Jan Mládek and the head of the country’s Energy Regulatory Office, the independent regulator created at the demand of the European Union, have not been too cosy recently. The fact that the minister was one of the main backers of moves to hoist a board or council with substantial new responsibilities to curb the powers of the head of the regulator, Alena Vitásková, is perhaps one factor in play.

Now the two have clashed over who’s at fault for a possible threat to a significant slice of the 42 billion crowns in Czech support next year for renewable and other energy producers. Alena Vitásková hit back on the regulator’s own web pages accusing minister Mládek of wrongly trying to put the blame for the threatened disorder in the energy sector on the regulator and defending herself against charges of lack of knowledge of the energy sector and its legal framework. Those charges were made in a blog by the minister himself.

On Wednesday, the Czech daily Lidové Noviny reported that minister Mládek is now seeking a meeting with Czech head of state, president Miloš Zeman, in which he will seek to pave the way for Alena Vitásková to be sacked. The minister or his press service were not immediately available to comment.

Spokesman for the Czech energy regulator Jiří Chvojka explained how the latest battle over renewables support, which was regularly paid in the past, has blown up. And he says that the regulator is just following orders from the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Alena Vitásková, photo: Filip Jandourek

“This year the situation has changed. First of all in March the Industry and Trade published a letter to all members of parliament that the support was wrongly established in the past and that there is overcompensation of renewables, which was a very strict and breakthrough decision. The second thing that happened is that the Ministry of Industry and Trade in October sent us a letter stating that we should not write out the support for the [renewable] sources that do not have the positive confirmation of the European Union.”

Meanwhile the position of Alena Vitásková at the head of the energy regulator has been cast into question by the new Civil Service law which declares that no-one facing criminal procedures can occupy top posts. Vitásková faces court procedures over clearance for solar power facilities which allegedly allowed them to earn extra millions of crowns.

Chvojka says the ministry has promised to clear up the situation.