High voltage pylons – illustrative photo.
České Budějovice – The company EG.D from the E.ON group is investing over seven billion crowns in the distribution network this year. It is roughly two billion more than in recent years. Demands on the distribution network are increasing. EG.D has to deal with a record number of requests to connect solar power plants, with the development of electromobility, new substations will be created, and the company will also modernize gas pipelines. E.ON spokesman Roman Šperňák told ČTK today.
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“Every year, we invest more than five billion crowns in the network. This year, we plan to increase the investment compared to previous years, to more than seven billion crowns. The increase in investment is mainly due to the rapidly increasing interest in connecting renewable sources, especially photovoltaic power plants, where only last year, the number of requests for connection increased by 430 percent. This is also due to the development of the charging infrastructure for electric cars and greater demands on the stability and quality of supplies from companies and households,” said Pavel Čada, vice chairman of the board of directors of EG.D. Last year, it connected over 11,500 new photovoltaic power plants to the network, 3.5 times more year-on-year.
This year, the company will invest approximately 1.6 billion in equipment at the level of very high voltage. More than a third of this amount will be spent on the renewal of the 110 kilovolt (kV) outdoor line, mainly in Vysočina, southern and eastern Moravia. There are seven projects. “Furthermore, this year we want to modernize substations for about 550 million crowns. Among the most important is the conversion of the switching station to a 110/22 kV transformer station in České Budějovice. We plan to start a similar conversion of the substation in Brno this year,” said Ladislav Mikuláš, head of investments at EG.D.
This year, the company will invest over four billion crowns in the restoration of high and low voltage in the regions. One of the trends is also that outdoor wiring is moving underground. The volume of invested money also increased compared to last year in the gas system. The company distributes gas in the south of Bohemia and Pelhřimov region. This year, he wants to modernize the gas pipelines and other parts of this network for more than 350 million crowns.
“We are planning several strategic constructions in the south of Bohemia and Pelhřimov Region. One of them is the increase in the capacity of the high-pressure pipeline in the Sezimova Ústí area, especially in order to ensure a sufficient amount of natural gas for the Tábor heating plant,” said Petr Honsa, head of the natural gas administration of EG.D.
The Czech energy group E.ON has about 3,500 employees. Through its 66,000 kilometer long distribution network, it supplies electricity to 1.1 million customers mainly from southern Bohemia, Vysočina and southern Moravia. Its market share is about 21 percent. In gas distribution, it has a network of more than 4,000 kilometers long, supplies 110,000 take-off points, and its share of the gas market in the Czech Republic is about 10.5 percent. The two key companies of the E.ON ČR group, EG.D and E.ON Energie, had a total profit after taxation of 6.07 billion crowns in 2021. The profit of both companies rose by roughly one billion year-on-year.
