Hello, everyone, and welcome to ČEZ Group Financial Results 2024 Results Conference Call. It's my pleasure to welcome Martin Novák, Chief Financial Officer, and Pavel Cyrani, Chief Sales and Strategy Officer, who will walk you through the presentation, and then we will have time for questions and answers. I'm now handing over to Martin.
Thank you. Good afternoon and good morning, everybody. I will go through the first two sections of the presentation. When you look at slide three, you can see actually our EBITDA and net income results for 2024. There compared to our guidance from November 12, we actually increased real numbers significantly. We achieved CZK 137.5 billion EBITDA and CZK 38.1 billion adjusted net income. The reasons that actually led to higher EBITDA than originally expected in November are coming from two parts. One is actually generation segment, which is plus CZK 5 billion. The main reasons are actually listed on the slide: revaluation of derivatives, higher prices, then originally anticipated update of provisions and lower cost, and higher operational availability of our nuclear and hydroelectric plants.
In other segments, we had lower purchase cost of commodities and also higher revenues from connection of the customers into the distribution segment. Very simply, taking our adjusted net income and applying our payout ratio of 60-80% of this adjusted income, you would come to a potential dividend of CZK 19 billion-CZK 25 billion or CZK 35-CZK 47 per share. On the next slide, we have more information about our acquisition of GasNet. We acquired Czech gas distribution that covers the vast majority of the territory. You can see it actually on the little map. With the exception of Southern Bohemia and the capital city of Prague, we cover the entire Czech Republic. Actually, numbers are consolidated since September 1. We acquired a 55.21% stake. The remaining 45% is held by two financial investors. There are main indicators, financial and also volumetric data.
Those that are actually worth highlighting is the size of the distribution. 59 TW h are actually transported of natural gas a year. 65,000 kilometers of gas distribution network. Almost three quarters are actually hydrogen-ready. 2.2 million connection points in the country. EBITDA around CZK 11 billion annually and net income about CZK 4 billion annually. This asset is not only a very interesting investment from a financial point of view, but also would help us actually to achieve our goals in converting our heat plants to CCGT, where more gas will be needed, and also in the future, also power plants, having better access to infrastructure and, of course, gas as a result of our trading operations. On the next slide, you can see actually a few highlights of our nuclear assets with more details provided.
I would just maybe stress that we are increasing the generation volume in existing power plants, and our ambition is to achieve 32 TWh per year. We are actually getting close in 2025, 31.8 TW h that we would like to produce, as you will see later. The details of how this should be achieved are provided in the text. We also ensured or contracted non-Russian nuclear fuel from Westinghouse with the first deliveries to be provided this year. We selected a preferred supplier in a tender for construction of new nuclear units in Dukovany. It is KHNP, Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company of South Korea. It was actually selected as a preferred bidder in July 2024. Negotiations on the contract actually are ongoing, and signing the contract should be happening sometime during the second quarter of this year.
We also became a strategic shareholder of Rolls-Royce SMR and continue to prepare SMRs in our country. South Korea, on the next slide, actually, KHNP information is provided with more details. Basically, one more thing is worth mentioning. Also, the paperwork, actually, and the approval processes are running according to schedule. On February 27, we received a zoning permit for new Dukovany site. We also negotiate not only Dukovany 2 extension, but also having option on two nuclear units in Temelín. On the next slide, you can see details on our partnership with Rolls-Royce. We acquired approximately 20% stake on March 4.
The logic is, as we already stressed out last time in November, that we would like not to be only customers of future SMR providers, but also participate through our chain of suppliers on construction of those units, not only for us, but for other customers as well, and be able to use, utilize actually our expertise and supply chain in those projects. Again, more detail is provided on the slide. On the next slide, you can see how we are doing in ESG. In the ESG agenda, in 2021, when we started officially communicating the ESG agenda, we set a goal to be among 20% best companies worldwide, measured by CSR Hub. We are actually now, we have got actually gotten between six or among 6% best companies.
We already overachieved our original target, as you can see on the chart and on the left side with, again, more details provided. We are happy that we are on the right track. Financial outlook for 2025 on slide number nine. This is an important slide. Actually, we are aiming at CZK 125 billion-CZK 130 billion EBITDA and CZK 25 billion-CZK 29 billion of net income. The main changes year- over- year are lower prices, power prices that are declining in the future, and also lower revenues from ancillary and regulation services and lower revenues from coal sales. Positive effects might be coming from or will be coming from us acquiring GasNet, which should bring about CZK 7 billion into our EBITDA and higher utilization of nuclear plants, where we should increase year-on-year utilization pretty significantly.
Selected assumptions of the current forecast, we aim to produce 43-45 TW h in the Czech Republic. Average realized prices of electricity generated in the Czech Republic are EUR 120-EUR 125 per megawatt hour. Total depreciation amortization of around CZK 50 billion, CZK 6 billion of which is attributable to GasNet, and another CZK 7 billion is attributable to accelerated depreciation on coal assets. Windfall tax of CZK 26 billion-CZK 30 billion to be expected on 2025 numbers. Those are the main highlights of the year. Now I would continue with financial results and detailed discussion on EBITDA and net income, mainly comparison with 2023, which is on slide number 11. You can see that our operating revenue has grown slightly by 1% to almost CZK 345 billion. Our EBITDA, as already mentioned, is 10% higher on a year, achieving CZK 37.5 billion.
Operating income, CZK 93.4 billion, or 11% better. Income taxes are actually a function of pre-tax profit, which means it's growing as well as our EBITDA is growing. In total, almost CZK 53 billion, CZK 32 billion out of which is attributable to windfall tax. Our net income is actually CZK 30.5 billion, which is 3% better over 2023. Adjusted net income is actually 9% lower. Adjusted net income has achieved CZK 31.8 billion, and I will cover the adjustments on the further slides. Operating cash flow is somewhat lower, mainly due to significant amounts of cash coming back from margins in 2023, and it achieved CZK 124.4 billion. CapEx, almost a quarter or 25%, 24% higher than in 2023, achieving almost CZK 57 billion.
Our net debt, as of 31st of December, has grown to EUR 102 billion or CZK 203 billion, increase of 34%, and net debt to EBITDA ratio is well below our target, and it is actually on 1.5. On the next slide, you can see actually split of our breakdown of EBITDA. On the right side, actually on the right picture, you can see the breakdown of CZK 137.5 billion split among various segments of our business. Generation from nuclear is almost half of our EBITDA, CZK 65.3 billion. Generation from renewables, CZK 8.6 billion. Trading, CZK 5 billion. Sales segment, CZK 9 billion. Distribution, which is the second strongest segment, CZK 27.2 billion, which also includes GasNet for the last four months of 2024. Then we have actually fossil generation and mining, CZK 13.7 billion and CZK 8.8 billion. Those actually emission-free activities in our EBITDA are now achieving 84%, which is a significant improvement over 2023.
Our emission-based EBITDA is now only 16%. It is moving us closer to our targets in the future. Next slide, you can see actually comparison for waterfall chart getting us from 2023 EBITDA of almost CZK 125 billion to 2024 EBITDA of CZK 137.5 billion. There are a few items that move it upwards and two items that move it downwards. CZK 7.1 billion improvement on generation segment, generation facilities, out of which CZK 10 billion is actually lack of cap on the revenues that was only in place in 2023, and it was CZK 10 billion. This is the main variant, actually something that we did not have to pay in 2024.
Trading, although it is showing negative variance, trading has achieved CZK 3.6 billion result, which is way above usual average, but it is below last year as the volatility was significantly lower in 2024 than in 2023 and mainly 2022. We are getting back to normal, I would say. Mining activities, minus CZK 3.4 billion, mainly due to lower prices of coal that we supply to our coal plants and lower amount of coal to be supplied to third parties due to lower demand for coal due to market conditions. On the other hand, we compensate this by lower operating cost of CZK 1.6 billion. Distribution segment is now comprised of two entities. It is just distribution, which is actually distributor, which is actually power generation or power distribution, and GasNet, which is gas distribution. GasNet is a new segment, which we did not have before.
Full EBITDA for four months of 2024 is actually included, and there was nothing in 2023, so it's all actually positive impacts. In Czech power distribution, we had significant improvement versus 2023, but the vast majority of it is actually coming from so-called correction factors, of CZK 3 billion of which we will have to return actually in 2026 after it is audited in 2025. Sales segment, CZK 2.7 billion better result. Retail segment, CZK 1.8 billion improvement, mainly due to declining purchase prices of commodities and ESCO or energy services is helping us with CZK 700 million. On the next slide, you can actually see the year-on-year changes in net income. We are starting with EBITDA that is 10% higher. Depreciation amortization is actually CZK 6.4 billion or 18% higher, mainly due to us including actually GasNet depreciation, which was CZK 2 billion for one-third of 2024.
We have higher depreciation on coal assets because we decided to accelerate actually depreciation of coal assets in October 2024. This is an effect of one quarter of a year. We also have higher depreciation in other segments, mainly just distribution. Asset impairments, CZK 2.3 billion. Part of it, or a significant part of it, is actually being reversed back into adjusted net income, as you will see later. Those impairments are mainly related to impairment on our mining assets. Other income and expenses, the largest variation is coming from interest income and expenses, which interestingly enough was zero in 2023, where we had a lot of cash coming from margining, actually from power changes being deposited at relatively high interest rates, leading to the fact that our situation that basically our interest received, the interest paid was equal. However, this is not the usual situation.
Now we are again back to normal where our interest paid is higher than interest received by CZK 3 billion. I already commented on income taxes. We are coming to net income of CZK 30.5 billion and adjusted net income CZK 31.8 billion. There are two adjustments. One is actually CZK 1.9 billion of non-cash charge into income that we actually returned back, which is actually impairment of a mining company. We increase actually net income by CZK 1.9 billion, and we decrease it by CZK 0.6 billion. This is actually non-controlling interest in GasNet. This is actually a net income that is attributable to minority shareholders that we, according to accounting rules, fully consolidate, but for purposes of adjusted net income subtract from the net income. This is how we get to CZK 1.8 billion. On the next page, you can see nuclear and renewable generation.
We achieved CZK 29.7 billion, 29.7 TW hours of power generation in nuclear plants, which is 2% lower than in 2023. Mainly, it is due to lower plant availability of Temelín. This will significantly change in 2025 when we assume a 7% increase. This is mainly due to shorter scheduled outages of Temelín. We should be getting closer to 32 TW h, actually 31.8 TWh precisely. In renewables, we had a good year, actually. In renewables, we had better results in Czech Republic due to better hydroelectric plants output in 2023. On the other hand, we do not expect it in 2024. I do not expect it in 2025. There should be a little decrease in hydroelectric by 0.1 TW h. In total, we would expect to produce the same amount of power from renewables, 3.7 TW h in 2025.
Overall increase of nuclear and renewable generation should be 6%. On the next slide, you can see our generation coming from fossil fuels. We have identical generation from Czech-based power plants, 14.1 TW h in 2023, 2024, and the same expectation for 2025. We had a decrease actually between 2023 and 2024 on Polish plants of about 18%. As you know, we actually disposed of Polish plants on 6th of February. They were actually transferred. The ownership was transferred to the buyer. We have only 0.2 TWh produced actually in Poland, and that will be it. It will be nothing more coming from Polish plants further this year. On natural gas generation, we had practically no change between 2023 and 2024, and we expect actually 29% decline in 2025 due to expected lower deployment of Pocharaddy CCGT due to market conditions. Next slide is fairly important.
You can actually see how much power is hedged, how much power we actually sold. This also provides information about 2024, which is 100% clearly delivered. In the orange bubbles, you can see actually average achieved prices. In the table below, actually what portion of power it is. For example, for 2025, we were 90% hedged on December 31, 2024. The same chart on the right side is actually showing the information for the carbon credits that we purchase as well in the moment when we sell actually coal-based power. On the last slide from this section, you can see selected events of Q4. We actually sold Polish assets to Resinvest Group Company, as I said, on 6th of February. Very successful transaction from our point of view, part of our decarbonization strategy. We would like to stay in Poland.
We are very active in Poland in ESCO services, but we decided to leave power generation coal market. Temelín and Dukovany meet the requirements of the new international standards for environmental management. We again actually received certificates proving that. We also sold 15% stake in the company Veolia Energia Czech Republic. We historically had a 15% stake, which was a result of the larger transactions when we got actually a stake in heat plants in the Czech Republic. Now we decided actually to dispose after many years of holding this financial investment, basically this stake back to Veolia Energy International. This is all for me. I would hand over to Pavel Cyrani to go through customer segments and implementation of Vision 2030.
Thank you, Martin. Splitting to page number 20, just a quick overview.
The customer segments contribute to CZK 36.1 billion of EBITDA, with CZK 23.2 billion coming from distribution, as already mentioned. On the distribution, it's about 33% year-on-year growth of electricity distribution. Now, gas distribution, obviously, is the addition of GasNet here, with only the four months where we actually consolidated GasNet out of about roughly CZK 11 billion, which was the full year EBITDA. The sales segments contributed roughly CZK 9 billion, and those were about 42% year-on-year growth. Overall, all of the customer segments fared nicely in 2024, and obviously, we expect the same or better even in 2025. Now, in terms of some of the other numbers, in terms of electricity distribution, which means basically consumption, we see a flat development year-on-year. After the decreases since 2020, we basically see stabilization, and looking forward, we see the opportunity for growth.
A similar situation in gas, again, year-on-year, basically flat with a very slight growth. Again, we perceive this as being kind of the local minimum, with the outlook being of consumption growth. Now, why the consumption should grow on both of these is as electricity and gas replace coal in all the aspects of coal being used, either in electricity and heat, that would be mostly gas, or also in household heating and industry, which would be more on the electricity side. Going forward, the demand for looking at the retail segment, I'll start with the number of customers. We basically see a flat development, 1% decrease. Again, we see the situation stabilized. We have acquired roughly 400,000 customers since 2020 as a number of customers basically returned to a very reliable partner, which ČEZ is.
There is now a slight correction with some of them going and looking for other options. At the same time, the number of customers which we started off in 2020 was 2.85 million. We still see a very significant growth compared to the pre-crisis situation. In terms of the volume, the volume in retail might look a little bit misleading. As during the crisis, there are also some SME customers coming to ČEZ ProDay, which normally is a household-only supplier. There was a window of opportunity for them to get better prices by the switch. Now, their typically three-year contracts expired, and they are coming back to ČEZ ESCO. A large part of this volume drop is actually a migration to ČEZ ESCO. In terms of the energy services, we see the growth both in the revenues as well as the actual profits to continue.
We experience 14% growth year-on-year, and we expect 7% forward-looking. What we recognize and what we see in the market is that regardless of the discussions in the public arena in terms of the further development, Green Deal, and so forth and so on in Europe, mostly industrial customers are still looking for ways of safe energy, safe money, and with this also reduce emissions. That is causing the demand for our energy services companies being ČEZ ESCO in Czech Republic and Elevion in the other parts of Europe. Now, a quick overview from the customer segments of selected events in Q4. You all heard that we have worked to develop our LNG business of bringing gas through LNG cargoes through Netherlands and in the future also through Germany.
Our teams also worked on developing other routes of gas, and one of them is importing gas to Europe from Algeria through undersea pipe and into Italy, and then from Italy further into Europe. We have concluded the first contract starting in October last year with Sonatrach, which is kind of the national gas company. The other piece of information is a long-term cooperation agreement with the city of Ústí nad Labem, one of the regional capitals, where we agreed to supply them with heat in the long term. That would be from the Trmice side, where we intend to build a combination of gas-fired and biomass-fired heating and CHP stations. This follows the same development for Chomutov coming from other Prunéřov and Tušimice side, as well as Northern Moravia coming from the Dětmarovice side.
Last but not least, just a highlight, we have achieved 100 high-performance public charging stations, with 55 being built in 2024. I think the density of the charging network is quite high in Czech, and especially the share of the high-performance charging stations is way above the European average. The good news is, again, that we see also growth in the usage. Also, the volumes of electricity charged through our charging networks are going up by tens of percent year-on-year. Now, a quick recap of how this all fits into our Vision 2030 Clean Energy for Tomorrow. Just a reminder, we are working on our strategic initiatives under two pillars. One is transforming our generation portfolio. The second is providing the energy solutions to also our customers so they can also transform their energy usage.
Now, we get asked to what degree this is or this is not and will be or will not be impacted by the public discussion on the Green Deal goals, targets, developments. We are sure or we are confident that it will not impact our strategy significantly. Our strategy has always been aimed at achieving all three goals of the energy trilemma, and that is energy security, energy competitiveness, and energy sustainability. Now, sustainability is the part that is being kind of discussed now, but obviously in terms of security and competitiveness, these are goals that nobody questions, and all our activities that we are doing are targeting all three of these. We definitely aim to continue in delivering our strategy. Pages 26 and 27 highlight some of the achievements. Many have been already mentioned by Martin in the area of nuclear.
Let me mention just a couple more. The construction of the second LNG terminal we have contracted starting 2027 in Stade has started, has been launched. I already mentioned we are working on achieving our target to convert our heating station portfolio to gas and biomass by 2030. There is construction going on a number of sites. Last but not least, we are also working on expanding our renewables portfolio. We have added roughly 40 MW of new renewables just last year, being supported from the modernization fund. We have just a little less than 160 MW of solar power plants under construction and more in the pipeline. In terms of the customer activities, again, a number of things have been already mentioned. I just put some highlights.
I think our colleagues in ČEZ distribution, the electrical grid, have been successful in answering the demand from our customers to connect new solar photovoltaic panels, typically rooftop. By now, we have connected almost 30,000 of those. With a record investment of CZK 20 billion last year. We are also working on digitalization, both in distribution and supply. I think overall, we are meeting all of the targets we have set forth within our vision. We also see demand for these services still continuing from our customers. In terms of the priorities for 2025, again, basically along the two main pillars plus sustainability or ESG, we will work on operating our nuclear power plants at maximum capacity. We expect the generation to grow quite a lot. Obviously, a number of milestones are ahead of us on both the large and the small modular reactor programs.
We'll continue again in our program for renewables buildup and heating station transformation. Now, last but not least, the law, which for the Czech speakers, Lex OZ3, which is now in the final stages of approval, contains a paragraph which allows the Minister of Industry to introduce a capacity market. That would be the last piece in the generation portfolio puzzle for the Czech Republic. We hope that once the law is passed, the Minister of Industry will start working on introducing a capacity market for also plain vanilla gas-fired backup power. In terms of the energy solutions and customers segments, again, basically alongside digitalization, investment into new connections. 2025 will be the year when we will see much more flexibility-based products being available for our customers. There is a rollout of smart electricity meters starting this year.
With this, our supply companies will offer more products for customers to participate also in the sport market and be able to get involved in demands and management and so forth and so on. Obviously, in the sustainability, I think we have done, and as Laurie mentioned, a lot of work in improving our ESG score. This is something we want to maintain and work on further. I think, and with this, I'd like to conclude and hand over back to Bar.
Yes, thank you. We are now open to questions. I can see that Arthur Sitbon from Morgan Stanley raised his hand. Arthur, you can unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for taking my question.
The first one is on the evolution of the dividend because the 2025 net income guidance is lower than your 2024 profits. I was wondering how do you think about dividend evolution in that context? Will you try to smooth the dividend decline by maybe paying a lower payout this year and increase it next year, or maybe paying above the guidance range on payout next year? Is the dividend volatility not really a key issue, a key concern for you, and you will not necessarily change your payout ratio for that? That is the first question. The second one on electricity, on networks, actually, electricity and gas, I think, if I am not mistaken, that the regulator has confirmed the initial proposal of an allowed return at 6.9% a few days ago. First, is that correct?
Should we have in mind any important change in the final document compared to the initial proposal? If it's correct, is that a good enough return for you to invest further in electricity networks? Maybe one last question on the windfall tax, if there's been any update on discussions, whether or not it will indeed end at the end of 2025. Thank you very much.
Answer first and third question. Dividend, what we propose is actually in line with our dividend payout ratio that was adopted, I guess, two years ago, if I'm not mistaken. That's what it is. Technically speaking, if the profits are lower, the mathematically calculated payout ratio will also be in nominal terms lower. I think it's too early to really discuss dividend of 2025 and 2026, way too early.
We will be announcing our proposal as the management of the dividend for 2024 in the spring of this year. That is probably as much as we can say. Windfall tax, according to the law, is actually valid till the end of 2025. We do not hear really about abolishing it for 2025. There is no initiative on canceling the tax for 2025, but there is also no initiative of prolonging it. This was really set for three years by law. There is an end to it, and we would assume that this is what it will be. Now maybe on the distribution.
On the distribution, you are correct that the base WAC for both electricity and gas distribution is 6.9% pre-tax. However, there is a bonus WAC of up to 1.5%. Combined, we are looking at 8.4% pre-tax.
The KPIs to achieve this bonus is mostly driven by investing in excess of the depreciation. It differs for gas and electricity. For electricity, it's 1.6 times CapEx over depreciation to achieve the maximum bonus. There's a number of other KPIs, but that's quite a lot of details that we can share offline. Just concluding, looking at the KPIs, looking at the cost of capital, and looking at our plans, we believe that we should achieve the full bonus. We are looking at 8.4% pre-tax WAC.
Okay. The next question comes from Piotr Dzieciolowski from Citi.
Good afternoon, everybody. I have three questions, please. The first one on the nuclear production, you're guiding to almost 32 TWh . Is this the number we should assume going forward? You will have around 32.
Because I remember historically you had a target to achieve higher production and it never materialized. How shall we think about this number in the future? That is the question number one. Second, can you please provide an update on this, whatever you can say on the negotiations regarding this construction of the two reactors? It was meant to be closed, the financing for it and potentially disposal of your SPV at the end of first quarter. Now we are talking about the first half, and you have an election coming up later this year. Is there any risk that this leaves post-election and how advanced you are? Any update would be helpful. Finally, on the realized prices, can you maybe break down the realized price for the nuclear versus lignite? How does it compare?
Because you still combined the two assets together, but they seem to have very different production profiles, one working base, the other more seasonally in winter. If you can say anything, how much of a premium lignite gets?
I would answer the first and third question. 32 TW h is something that is a result of basically our ability to exchange fuel in the units once in 18 months, so not necessarily every year. That was one of the reasons why the power generation was relatively low in 2024 compared to 2025, where we will be getting close to 32 TW h. I would not necessarily say that in 2026, actually, we will be again on the same number. It might be again lower, actually, than 2025 because we will be replacing fuel in those units where we will not be replacing fuel actually this year.
The 2030 goal is to achieve 32 TW h, but it's not that it will be automatically from now on every year like that. That's the first question. The second question, realized prices, what we do, we actually sell our power output both for nuclear and lignite plants in a straight line method, three years ahead. In terms of selling base load, there is no difference between nuclear plants and lignite plants. However, we keep about 10% of position open, as you could see actually on our numbers on the chart where it shows how much power was sold and which years ahead. I think we had like 10% open position at the beginning of January for 2025, which takes into consideration various peaks and opportunities on the market, which clearly are not coming from nuclear because nuclear is really running in a steady way.
This is coming more from gas where we actually do not hedge it at all and coal. That is the answer. Basically, coal and gas are used to cover the peaks. Stable nuclear output is not. When we actually do hedges that you can see on those slides, they are the same price for all units. Now, the KHNP or government negotiations.
Look, I think what we understand is that the commitment to finish this process is still there. It is still valid. I think here we are talking about a potential delay of a couple of weeks, which would be used to really make sure that all the contracts are negotiated to the best possible situation or the best possible form. I think it is kind of well invested, a couple of weeks, if it is aimed at improving the contracts.
I do not think there should be anything beyond that that you should kind of get from it or look into.
Okay. Thank you very much. Very helpful.
Next question from Bram Buring, Wood & Company.
Yes, hello. With regards to your CapEx, you published in the report the new update. It looks like now you are expecting CapEx to peak in 2027 at somewhere around CZK 83 billion and then to drop off fairly. [Foreign language] Hello?
[Super]. Hello?
Yes, we can hear you.
Yeah. Okay.
We can you hear you.
Cheers. Then drop off in 2029-2030. My question is to do with the renewables portion of that CapEx because it has been, frankly, quite low for a while. I am curious about what you were including for renewables in 2025 to 2027. [Nilan, please] [Foreign language]. And then if you are and then to ask about the long-term 2030 CapEx.
The long-term solar capacity in the Czech Republic, 6 GW, I believe it was. Should I understand that your CapEx in 2028-2030 is sufficient, as it were, to allow you to reach that 6 GW? Thank you.
Look, on the renewables, the way we decided to plan the investments is basically based on the programs that are now available to put it. From this perspective, obviously, the CZK 25 billion or CZK 23 billion of renewables with the peak of CZK 27 billion would not be enough to build 6 GW. We are ready to expand the renewable program beyond what is now in the plan as soon as we see better conditions for the renewable projects. We have asked for a number of projects to be supported from the modernization fund.
With the capture solar prices decreasing and also the conditions of the modernization fund being more strict, we do not see that much opportunity beyond what we have already either launched in terms of construction or what we have applied for. We will be kind of following closely what other programs and, let's say, markets would be created for further renewables. I would say the government now approved a law which introduces so-called acceleration zones in the Czech Republic. Obviously, there is still some legislation process between the government approval and the actual law. We will see how quickly that will be put in place. Obviously, if this starts, there could be quite a big opportunity for wind to be constructed.
That wind would come on top of it, and we would then update you on our CapEx plan as soon as we will see that this kind of has been put in legislation, and there is this window of opportunity for wind. This is how we eventually decided to approach renewables because the situation simply changes too quickly, and the programs are changed year -on -year. It's difficult to give long-term plans. Obviously, our balance sheet allows for more investments into renewables than what you see right now in the plan.
Okay. Right now, the sort of, let's call it the long-run CapEx of around CZK 66 billion isn't compatible with a target of 6 gig of PV in the Czech Republic. We have to think about a lower number. Do you have an idea what that number? Let me ask you this.
You told us what's under construction. What was operational at the end of 2024, please, for Czech PV?
I think we are looking at roughly 160 MW of operational this year. This year. And then the other 160 are just not to confuse it. These are similar numbers. There is like a little over 160, a little less than 170 operational. At the same time, a very similar number, around 160, is under construction. Similar numbers, but different things that they describe.
All right.
This is not so the 100.
The money you see there will get more. We will get more than this for the money you have seen there. You will get more than that for the money you see there.
Okay.
To help me unpick that puzzle, could you just give me an all-in number, CapEx 2025 to, say, 2028, all-in number for coal-to-gas switching?
The coal-to-gas switching is roughly the numbers that we have included, is roughly CZK 68 billion in the presentation that was published.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
We have a follow-up question from Arthur.
Before we go into the question, also on this one, I would like to explain it. We do not know how exactly the capacity markets will look like. What is included in those CZK 68 billion is the coal-to-gas switching in combined heat and power. Because there, we know what is happening. We get the support from the modernization fund, and we also get a special support for combined heat and power production.
Now, similar with the situation in renewables, we will present the exact plan on how much backup gas capacity we intend to build once we understand what the market looks like when it starts and what are the conditions. We have a number of projects in the pipeline. This would also come on top of these CZK 68 billion, the kind of gas backup power that we would build against the new capacity market if it is introduced.
Assuming that it is introduced, that spending on new CCGTs and similar would start roughly when? 2029? Later?
Roughly. 2028, probably earliest, 2029, 2030, 2031, so.
Cool. Thank you very much.
Okay. We can take the next question from Petr Bartek.
Good afternoon. Two quick questions. First, maybe if you can share your view on the carbon prices going forward, say, midterm, not only for this year.
What do you see in terms of regulation, the impact from the situation in the U.S. and elsewhere? Whether you would expect any change in the outlook. Second, when you speak about these CHPs, gas-fired CHPs for heating, if you are also looking at, for example, power-to-heat solutions, so you would use the solar production for heating. Thank you.
I'll start with the second. I mean, we do pilots and testing of a combination of solar and heat pump. Honestly, just the solar production and the heat consumption are as misaligned as it gets. We are not getting beyond pilots. That is on this one.
The first question. Carbon credits.
Oh, carbon credits. Honestly, we do not know. We do not know any more than you do. We see the discussion. We see the discussion.
What we understand is that there's a lot of discussion on the combustion engines. There's discussion on EU ETS2. I haven't heard much about discussing about EU ETS1. I don't know if you have heard. This is what we are kind of seeing. This obviously predates. EU ETS1 predates the so-called Green Deal. At the same time, can something very unexpected happen these days?
Yes. Anything can happen. We are really kind of just kind of waiting to see how this discussion will develop.
Basically behave the same way as always. Whenever we sell actually coal-fired electricity, we buy carbon credits to lock in the margin. That's all we can do.
Okay. Thank you. Maybe if you can share a little bit about the spot margins on the natural gas-fired power plants. I saw quite a high production in Q4, if I'm not mistaken.
Whether you see any development in the market, which you could comment on.
Look, anytime there is not enough sun and no wind, it's the bonanza for gas powered, right? That was the Q4 last year,
Which is in winter.
We do expect that the situation will be happening in winter, and that's when the gas stations come in.
Okay. Thank you.
It seems we do not have any further questions. Thank you, everyone, for participating. If some further questions come up to your mind, just contact Investor Relations. Thank you very much and goodbye.