Putting green Eldorado on ice

The Czech Republic has neither sunshine nor wind, and yet its solar and wind energy businesses are booming. The sector is spreading so fast, opines Hospodářské noviny, that it’s beginning to look like a “cancerous growth”. Faced with a soaring number of requests from households and companies – along with speculators lured by “pathologically outsized” subsidies (the fattest in the EU) – ČEZ (the country’s main power utility) has decided for the time being to stop issuing permits for wind and solar energy stations to connect to its grid. At the current rate – 700 new stations hooked up to the grid in January – the subsidies are going to cost the state €800 billion from now to 2030. What is more, "the boom in subsidised power has caused electricity rates to skyrocket”, explains the Prague daily, the reason being that ČEZ buys the electricity at twice the price it charges its customers.