Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of CEZ. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulties during the conference, please press star key followed by the zero on your telephone for an operator assistant. May I now hand you over to Barbara Seidlová who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead.
Hello everyone, welcome on our regular quarterly call. Martin Novák, Chief Financial Officer, and Pavel Cyrani, Chief Sales and Strategy Officer, will walk you through the presentation, and then there will be room for Q&A. Now I'm handing over to Martin to start.
Thank you. Good afternoon, good morning, everybody. As Barbara said, I will cover first two parts of the presentation, and Pavel, third one. We'll do it in a relatively fast way, because most of you probably read the presentation already, and that's why I will only highlight the most important parts of it. Obviously the first slide, or slide number 3 actually, shows you our financial highlights, for first quarter and also estimates for 2022. Our important number, EBITDA, has increased by 119% year-on-year to CZK 43.7 billion. Net income reached CZK 27.6 billion, which is higher by a few billion than actually net income for entire 2021. Adjusted net income is the same.
We don't have any extraordinary effects, so CZK 26.7 billion. Financial outlook, we are increasing our EBITDA guidance by CZK 10 billion. Original guidance was CZK 85 billion-CZK 89 billion, now it is CZK 95 billion-CZK 99 billion. Net income is increasing to CZK 45 billion-CZK 49 billion. It's important to say that our current dividend policy, being implemented actually for the 2022 profits, is coming back to standard levels. Standard in our industry is around 60%. Our dividend policy is 60%-80%. Really, if we have, if we are in such a financial shape as we are today, we would be preparing to move much closer to 80% rather than 60%.
Taking 80% payout from the range of CZK 45-49 billion would bring us to 67-73 CZK per share, which would be record high dividend ever that was nominally paid by our company. Our shareholder meeting will be held on 28th of June in Prague. Very similar as last year and the year before. Now, let's look at the next slide, where I will comment the most important variances. As you can see, our EBITDA has more than doubled actually year-on-year and on existing assets, not taking into consideration those that we divested. It's actually 144% increase. The vast majority is actually in segment of generation. Generation segment is up by CZK 20 billion.
There are few key numbers that are worth noting. Impact of power prices, both those that were achieved on our forward sales, but also those that we are achieving on unsold part of our production. As we will see further on Slide 15, actually bring almost CZK 14 billion. We also got extremely strong, as strong as ever, you know, this is a record high, output or actually income on our prop trading activities. Last year, prop trading was achieved for the first quarter, CZK 300 million. This year it's CZK 5.2 billion. Five point two billion is actually CZK 4.9 billion higher than last year.
You know, just to give you perspective, our normal trading result, when the times were not that volatile, was about 1, maximum 2 billion Czech crowns per year, and it was deemed to be success. Now it's actually CZK 5 billion in 3 months, you know. High volatility combined with the trading skills of our team brought us actually to record high profits from this activity. This is something that is very difficult to predict, of course, and you know, it just cannot be planned for. We had CZK 8 billion worth actually of special items or one-off item, however you call it, that are also very difficult to predict.
4.3 is related to sale of carbon credits that we actually sold during first quarter. As you know, many companies in our industry are searching for liquidity just because of high margin calls due to high power prices. For most of us is 2022, when most of our power was sold at the levels of around EUR 50, and now the power prices for quarterly products are EUR 250, but they were also EUR 700 on seventh of March, which requires extreme level of cash to be provided by the sellers on the power exchange, including ourselves.
One of the ways how to secure as much cash as possible in a fast way was selling our carbon credits, that would be normally used, and they would normally be part of our, you know, cost of, making power. This brought us, PNL, effect of CZK 4.3 billion. Of course, we immediately bought the carbon credits back, with the supply of those by the end of the year. Technically, we released cash, and we did not incur any additional cost. From accounting point of view, all the profit is realized actually in first quarter, and then we are kind of burning the credits at the market price, you know. All the profit that is now borne in the first quarter will be actually consumed, during, following three quarters.
There's another three and a half billion Czech crowns of revaluation of gas contracts for our gas plant in Počerady, where securing cheap gas last year is to revaluation in first quarter of three-point five billion. Those are the special items or the items that are difficult to plan for, but vast majority is coming of the variance is coming from higher power prices and trading result. We had a negative variance actually in sales segment. As you can see here, negative two-point four billion. This relates to the fact that we acquired a few hundred thousand customers due to the fall of a few significant suppliers last fall. Of course, we don't have enough power for such cases, so we have to buy power for them.
Normally, they are paying advances on the same level, basically, but the power is at a different price depending on the time of the year. So we actually suffered some loss on our sales retail activities and B2B segment to be recovered later on in the year. Next slide just demonstrates what's happening on a gas market and how it should translate into electricity and power prices. Clearly, power today is a function of gas, and we have to take all measures to prevent us from getting into trouble, all of us in a sector with power prices that will be too high.
Good news is that one-third of a year is behind us, so we actually supplied power, got the money from our customers, and also got the margins back. Now the 2022 issue is only 66% of what it used to be at the beginning of the year. Next slide, actually, year-on-year changes in net income. Of course, the largest one and the one that is worth noting is actually EBITDA, that we discussed in detail just a few moments ago. We also had a little bit higher depreciation and amortization due to faster decommissioning of coal plants. We did not have basically any impairments, so there's a positive variance. That's probably the thing that is.
The only thing that is worth noting is actually CZK -2 billion, which are foreign currency losses that are related to margining, actually. Where the Czech crown has strengthened in the meantime. Now it has weakened again. That's how it is. Just to give you perspective, I think on seventh of March, eighth of March, our exposure to margining was the highest, and we had on margins actually invested CZK 100 billion or something like EUR 4 billion during the day. The situation is really important to watch it. Next slide actually shows you our outlook. As I said, we increased our outlook due to our guidance due to significantly higher prices, higher profits from commodity trading.
We had a few risks, also selected and listed. Dividend is something that I already did discuss with you. Selected important, like, events in 2022 first quarter. We managed to go through an auction of CapEx subsidies. In total, in the Czech Republic, CZK 3.5 billion were awarded. CZK 2.1 billion actually is awarded to us. 17 projects out of 22 projects that we submitted were awarded the support. Total capacity, 173 MW. We must finish those projects within 60 months. Next round of auctions is expected in second quarter of this year. Again, CZK 3.5 billion. Good news on photovoltaics front.
Now we are really ready to go, and we can actually start further development and construction of the projects. We also issued our first sustainability-linked bond on April 6th. EUR 600 million bonds was issued, coupon 2.675%. It is actually related or links to our carbon intensity should we not actually achieve our carbon intensity target. The coupon in the last year, 2027, will be increased by 0.75%. Simply said, it would be something like 0.15% every year. We also with our ESG initiative that was actually announced last May, we made a significant progress.
Today, according to MSCI, we are reaching AA rating, which means we are upgraded by two notches from BBB, and we were upgraded actually on April 8. Now we are in a top 33 energy companies in ESG area. Also significant move, very similar on S&P Global. From ESG point of view, we increased from 63rd percentile to 72nd. Sustainalytics also improvement on our ESG score, scoring system. Tender for the construction of the new nuclear plant was launched on March 17. That was a significant milestone. By November 30, the initial bid RDU, final bid RDU in fourth quarter 2023.
We will receive state comments on the tender by Q1 2024 or in Q1 2024. Final signing of the contracts will happen by the end of 2024. It's important to say that basically government is financing the project construction phase with interest-free loan and then providing us contract for difference basically that will secure our return on our part of the investment, which is basically preparatory and planning phase. Now generation mining and generation segment EBITDA, I basically already provided you comments because the largest increase in our EBITDA of CZK 28 billion actually is coming from this segment.
You can always see a breakdown into power sources, zero emission generating, which is nuclear renewables, fossil fuels, trading activities, and specific temporary effects that I just described. We have more detail actually on the table. Mining segment is also doing better than last year. 25% increase due to higher demand for coal from CEZ Group, but also external customers, and due to higher demand, they had somewhat higher operating expenses, of course. Mining volumes are similar to last year. On next slide, we can see actually generation estimates for full year and also quarter one real numbers on quarter one, we are basically flat +1%. On nuclear facilities, 3% improvement.
Actually, renewables 17% lower, mainly due to worse than average weather conditions, you know, basically weather conditions, hydrometeorological conditions. In the Czech Republic, we did not have enough snow this winter, basically no snow. Hydro plants are not doing that well. On the other hand, partly compensated by Germany, where we had a relatively bad wind conditions in 2021. Despite all of that, it's 17% lower due to hydro conditions in the Czech Republic. On full year basis, we would plan to keep our nuclear plants flat and due to hydro conditions actually. On the other hand, very good hydro conditions in 2021, we are planning slight decrease in our renewables generation.
Just coal and natural gas generation, we are down by 10%, mainly on gas, because of the setup of the prices and power prices. It was not worth running CCGT as much as before. For full year, we actually expect flat generation from natural gas, some increase in Poland and some increase in coal generation in the Czech Republic, mainly due to shorter outages and higher power generation at our only hard coal plant that we have in the Czech Republic at Dětmarovice, due to again favorable power price conditions. Last three slides. Our carbon intensity basically flat compared to first quarter of last year. We are actually on track with our targets.
We are also showing sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, where in basically all segments we are doing better than before. Again, as I said, it's very realistic that we will achieve our targets. Very important two slides at the end of my section. It's Slide 16 and 17. Actually, this is the answer to why we have such an increase in our revenue. At the beginning of April, we had 8% of capacity unsold, but in terms of sales, because we are selling at current pricing that our quarterly products are about EUR 250, but shorter term and peak products are much higher. So it will constitute about 22% of our revenue.
It will move our average achieved price, which until now is EUR 83 per megawatt hour to the level of EUR 95-EUR 98 per megawatt hour. Significant increase in average achieved price, which will also. That's the reason why we also actually change our guidance for full year. Emission allowances, we have 12% open position. Remaining allowances are actually hedged at EUR 75 per ton. Natural gas or gas supplies to our customers, retail and wholesale, are 100% secured. This open position that we show you here is actually open position on the CCGT plant, where 57% is hedged, 40% is still open. Which, but with the CCGT, that is kind of peaking plant, taking advantage of market, it's not that important information.
Hedging in general for 2023, we are currently at EUR 70.9. 2024, similar level. 2025, EUR 76.3. For all those years, the power prices are significantly higher, so hedging actually at the higher levels means that average achieved price will clearly go much higher. Similar picture on carbon credits, EUR 45.8, EUR 53.1 in terms of prices. 2025, their whole volume so far hedged at current price of EUR 91.6. So that's all for me. Now I will hand over to Pavel Cyrani to present distribution and sales.
Thank you, Martin. Looking at page 19 and with a quick overview of the distribution segment, we see a flat quarter year-on-year for the distribution segment EBITDA. In terms of electricity distribution, you know, slash consumption, we see a 4% decrease. I will comment it on the next page. As you see, it is mainly driven by the household segment, which is again mainly driven by temperature. We have a milder winter than last year. Temperature adjusted, we see a slight drop, about 1%, which we basically attribute to two things. One is number one, even beyond temperature, there is some drop in the household segment attributable to people going back to the offices.
At the same time, and you see it also on the left-hand side of the page, we also see some drop for the large customers and some drop in the retail customers. That we attribute to that there is actually some sensitivity to the very high electricity and gas prices. This is for electricity, so there's some kind of demand response to the higher prices in the consumption. In terms of the supply segment, as Martin Novák described, we had a rather slow Q1. Overall, you see that. Can you hear us well? We have some beeping sound.
The line is back. Yes.
Thank you. In terms of, let me rephrase it. In terms of financial results, you see that we had a weaker Q1, and this was predominantly driven by this differential in the payments received from the customers that are uniform throughout the year. The cost being normally somewhat higher in winter but are extremely higher this winter. At the same time, we had a significant inflow of customers, which you see on the next page, on 22. That resulted in both a higher volume of electricity and gas delivered, of course, and also a higher number of customers in absolute terms.
was mainly driven by the fact that there was quite a number of suppliers going bankrupt or stopping operation and then we attracted the customers from these. Obviously, they put some strain on us in terms of securing additional electricity, especially this winter. Overall, we believe that this is a good step in increasing our consumer base and for the future, increasing the results of the sales segment in both household and corporate customers. Now, on page 23, a couple of points. Number one, CEZ is still the kind of stable point in the otherwise very volatile energy sector universe in the Czech Republic.
Therefore, we have been awarded this, well, one of the suppliers with high praise with the customers. Like I said, we attracted a number of customers we helped, more than 400,000 customers to deal with the fact that their suppliers stopped operating, and too many of them they transferred to CEZ eventually. Also, the situation with large number of customers that we had to serve sped up our digitalization efforts. In February, we've introduced an updated application for internet self-service, which helped us to service customers faster. In terms of the energy services, also higher prices of gas and electricity is driving the demand for energy services.
You see that year-over-year, we see about a 33% growth both in Q1 and then overall year-over-year expectations. I think that is at least half the trend that we should see also for the further years. Thank you for listening to the presentation, and we're ready for questions.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial zero and one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question is answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero and two to cancel your question. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making a selection. One moment please for the first question. We have a first question. It's from Piotr Dzieciolowski of Citi. The line is now open to you.
Hi. Yes, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for the presentation. Very helpful. Very good set of results indeed. I wanted to ask you about the lignite profitability. How long do you see this being maintained at the current levels? I mean, your EBITDA on fossil fuel was, I think, four or five times what it was a quarter like last year. That would be the first question, like, at what point do you see the compression of the clean dark spreads? Do you see also the expansion of the margin in the upcoming years? That's the first question. Then the second question I would have around the nuclear project, because the tender is on the fourth quarter 2023. But I just wanted to understand about this options positioning.
You have a put option and government has a call option. Does this mean that these options have to be executed, or the government can actually come to you and say, "Why don't you take part in the project as you have so much money on the balance sheet?" This would be my two questions.
Response you're asking. Now, on the lignite profitability, we obviously what you want to look at is, so-called clean spread, on the market. It was the case, some months ago that there would be a very high spread for the front year, but, lower and lower spreads looking forward in the future. Now, if you look at the market today, I think the clean spread is, it looks very good until, as far as the market liquidity goes for us, until 2025, even 2026. So this is what we are seeing in the market. Now, if I kind of rephrase the question, back to you, is that how long will the gas prices stay high?
Because this is basically what drives the profitability of the lignite plants. It was the case that the market saw that the gas prices would decrease pretty significantly pretty soon. Now we see higher gas prices being quoted even for the further years. How that will be impacted by the development around the conflict in Ukraine, this is to be seen. You know, for the next years, 1, 2, 3, where we are hedging is that we see a very interesting profitability for the lignite stations. Now on nuclear.
Can you say how much, for example, is the lignite EBITDA embedded within the guidance for this year?
If you look in the backup, you should be able to find the slide.
That's okay. I can follow up with Barbara.
Yes. Now on the nuclear, let me just describe how exactly it works. The way the contract for Phase I with the government is set up is that unless it is being replaced by a new contract, this contract actually ends with the project being taken over by the government. This is the way the optionality is set up. There needs to be a new contract concluded that will replace the old one if there is no contract concluded, the project is being taken over by the government. Now, the conditions for the new contract are currently being negotiated. We don't see any change in dynamics for the negotiation of the contract because it's the contract stabilizes the price both ways.
It brings stability in the price, both for the investor as CEZ, but it also brings stability for the government. I think the government is happy that it will be able to to tell the consumers in the Czech Republic that through this contract, they will be basically shielded from potentially high prices such as that we see in the market today. We don't see any change in the dynamics the way the contracts are negotiated.
You know, basically, it's not good option of government to put it on us, but they have a call option to call it if they want, and we have a put option to put it on them if we want, or if there is no new contract, it's automatic, right? Cannot happen that we would be left with a project that we don't want to be in. That was the reason why we negotiated for years, you know, with government this type of arrangement.
Just a follow-up. Definitely, you made a tremendous amount of money with this power crisis. Do you see yourself potentially, if the conditions are right, being part of the nuclear project? Because at the moment, the kind of a market, I believe market thinks you're not going to be part of the CapEx program for the nuclear. Actually looking at your balance sheet, potentially there is the money to fund it. Would you consider such a scenario that you are part of it with some equity contribution?
Look, the reason that the government came up in the discussion with us with the concept that is on the table at this moment was to drive the price for the consumers as low as possible. It was not driven by the fact that CEZ has or does not have equity to invest in the project. The government wanted the price to be between EUR 50 and EUR 60 in 2020 terms. Obviously, that is achievable only with, you know, cost of capital, you know, zero for the construction and then a very low 2% for the actual operation.
Now, even if we did have equity and wanted to invest in it, obviously, we would not be investing at these returns, and that would spoil the price that the government is kind of striving for.
Okay. Understood.
What we do with the spare cash, definitely keep on developing our renewables portfolio in the Czech Republic. ESCO activity, acquiring ESCO players actually in the Central European market, Germany, Northern Italy, where we are still growing. Of course, as we also noted today, due to higher results, we would be able to pay higher dividend.
Cool. Thank you.
The next question is by Arthur Sitbon of Morgan Stanley. The line is now open, Arthur.
Hello. Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on the very good conditions that you're benefiting from on your fossil fuel activities. I was wondering if in any way that could put at risk or slow down your coal closure agenda. That's my first question. The second question, a quick one on the ESCO business. You show quite strong organic growth numbers. I was wondering if you could give a bit more detail on those organic growth numbers. Where does the growth come from? What are the segments that are particularly successful?
The last question was if you could comment on the potential impact on your activities if there were to be an interruption of gas imports from Russia. Thank you very much.
Now, on the coal closure, I think it's the right question, but honestly. Can you hear us?
Your line is back.
Okay. Thank you. On the coal closure, I think it's the right question, but honestly, it's too early for it. Our kind of base case expectation is that along the lines of the European Union goal to reduce the dependency on Russian gas to zero by 2027, we expect that the situation will kinda normalize by then. Or if not by 2027, soon after. Some reduction in consumption and also a significant buildup of alternative ways to deliver gas to Europe from other parts of the world, LNG terminals, new connectors within Europe and so forth and so on.
From this perspective, one, since we expected the coal closure and the reduction in capacity and production to be speeding up towards 2030, we basically, in the base case, don't expect a significant change in this. We do, and you see it already in the numbers that we are running on a higher utilization this year. We were planning to shut down one station in Katowice next year, and we will extend probably 1-2 years before the situation kind of stabilizes again. In terms of our, kind of, as I said, overall targets, we don't expect a significant change. Obviously, depending on how exactly this whole thing kind of evolves and whether these expectations and goals that we see in the market do materialize.
In the for the ESCO energy services, you see that we see a strong growth across segments and across markets. It's driven by energy savings, so we are kind of constructing a lot of decentralized distributed photovoltaic, you know, bringing energy savings or, you know, modernizing the way people heat their offices and how they produce heat. We have concluded several partnerships with large industrial customers who finally made the step that they want to change the way they produce energy with steam or hot water for their industrial processes. A lot of the things that people have been discussing, and we saw some kind of pilot projects, we finally see them happening.
Now, you may ask, why with such a strong growth in revenues, we don't see a corresponding growth in EBITDA? There are two answers to it, and both are temporary. Actually, I'm pretty confident that the organic growth will translate into EBITDA growth as well. The two temporary effects are as follows: We use gas for some decentralized heat generation. As it is with all hedging, the hedging is always kinda only 95% kind of working, which in a normal situation is okay. Now, with like these extreme swings in gas prices, we had some temporary impact on the profitability of our cogeneration gas cogeneration stations. That's number one. Number two, we also see some temporary kind of supply shocks.
Prices of both components and also prices of personnel of staff are growing. With some increased costs which will need to translate into the prices kind of over time. That's for energy services. Last but not least, how would we be impacted by gas interruptions? It kind of depends on what kind of gas interruptions are we talking about. We have close to none direct contracts with gas from export. We do have one, but very small and only limited until the end of this year. There, the impact is, as I said, kind of low to very low to zero.
Now, if there was like a significant interruption that would lead to actually country-wide regulation of gas supply, that would translate in, like, the first thing that would be disconnected is electricity generation from gas. That's kind of the first regulatory degree where these stations are disconnected. That would be eliminated. Then the gas would be distributed to consumers via a kind of specific order, depending on the priorities. There is legislation for this, but honestly, it has been never used, and it is not clear how it would work out financially. That would actually only impact, if anything, our gas supply business, which obviously in these overall numbers that we are talking about, has a very limited share.
The overall electricity business would be impacted, if anything, probably in a positive way, because interruption in gas would increase the electricity prices again. This is kind of the overall description. Now, we obviously all hope that we will not be in a situation that we actually have to, in reality, use that. Just couple of comments what the country is also doing. The country and regulator and the ministries are working on increasing the local storage of gas. A government agency actually issued a tender that we won to purchase and store extra gas in the storage. There's also some extra motivating contract for the suppliers to actually speed up storage of gas for the country compared to the previous years. It is working.
I just read an article that Czech Republic is the country with the fastest increase of gas storage in the territory over past weeks in all of Europe.
Thank you very much.
The next question is by Nadia Al-mehri of Abia. The line is now open to you.
Hi. Thank you so much for the presentation. Following up a question on the indirect exposure to Russian gas. I understand that, if interruption happen, it will affect the electricity segment. But does CEZ have any contracts with other gas suppliers that they need to deliver the gas to, or it's just for the consumers. What am I alluding to is there would be any liabilities for CEZ if the Russian gas suddenly stopped?
No. We only purchase gas in order to supply our CEZ E station or our end consumers. We don't risk. We aren't. We don't, like, have a, you know, import contract that we would be then resupplying to the rest of Europe, no.
Okay. Clear. Thank you.
The next question is by Teresa Schinwald of Raiffeisen Bank. The line is now open to you.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Two sets of questions. One would be on what would you expect the impact to be on CEZ if neighboring countries abandon a marginal pricing model. We have discussions now here in Austria. The second one is around distribution. First, could you tell us quickly how the compensation mechanism for loss energy works? Because I'm assuming that the current costs are not covered in the 2022 tariff. The second one is a broader one. How do you expect the rising interest rate environment and we also got just today soaring inflation figures for Czechia to impact the distribution and the regulation. Thank you.
Okay. Now, I do see that there is a number of discussions on the way the market is functioning in a number of countries. It is very difficult to comment on the impact given that there is such a wide variety of schemes and market mechanisms being discussed. I think I could only do the math that all of you can do, what is the impact of EUR 1 of electricity price on CEZ's revenues and true revenues, also EBITDA. Other than that, it's very difficult to predict. Now, what I see and what I actually internally agree with is the emerging recommendation by European Commission, and that is, let the market function. Make sure that there is always the supply and demand meet at any given time.
That if anything, use the proceeds, because a lot of the large part of the high prices actually goes to the government budgets through CO2 allowances, through all kinds of taxes, including VAT, in CEZ situation, also through dividends, and use these proceeds to support those consumers that cannot cope with the higher prices. Otherwise, if you have, you know, if you make a significant change in the market design, the opposite of what we need will happen. What the sector actually needs is it needs to attract new investments into renewables, nuclear, LNG terminals, connectors, gas and electricity in order to reduce the dependency on Russian gas. We actually need to invest in all of these things.
We actually, if anything, need to maintain or increase the trust in the sector. That's kind of a side commentary question. Otherwise, as for the impact, difficult to comment. Now, on the distribution, the way it works is that the distribution buys electricity, hedges electricity for the losses upfront. It is exposed only if anything, the unexpected changes in distribution losses, and we are not seeing anything like that. What is now in the tariffs has been hedged. The way it is being hedged is, it's basically as we hedge electricity for the end consumers, and that is throughout the year that precedes the year of the supply.
Where it will be seen is in the electricity price for next year, and that will need to be reflected to tariffs, and it will be claimed by distribution vis-à-vis the regulation that the part of the tariff for the losses for 2023 obviously will need to reflect the higher prices of 2022.
Now on the kind of higher interest rate environment, Martin.
Well, generally as a group, we finance ourselves in euros, so we use euro financing as a natural hedge against sales in euros because power is sold in euros. We are not suffering that much from increased interest rates on Czech crowns. Yes, inflation is overall present both in Czech crowns and also in euros in Eurozone. As everybody, we will have to deal with it. Clearly, when we renegotiate with the regulator in new regulatory period, those things will have to be taken into consideration. It's clear.
Okay, thank you.
Now, of course, you know, looking at the company point of view or company situation, we are kind of lucky that the price of our output is inflated significantly more than the cost side, you know, which is inflated, let's say with a few percentage points. Energy doesn't cost EUR 50 as a year ago, but EUR 250, you know, today.
Of course. Thank you very much.
The next question is by Nishan Nam of Société Générale. The line is now open.
Hi there. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the call. One question on the nuclear fuel supply. Now that you have signed the contract with Westinghouse and Framatome for the VVER thousand reactors, are there any plans in the works in terms of securing alternate supply for the VVER for the reactors as well? And do you think that Westinghouse could be a potential, you know, maybe not now, but in a couple of years, a potential alternative supplier for that kind of fuel? Thank you.
Well, simply said, you are right that we sign a contract or tendered a new contract for the fuel supply for Temelín for VVER-1000. At the same time, we also have been working hard on increasing the stock that we have at the nuclear plants for the immediate use. Yes, we will be working also on making sure that there are kinda alternative suppliers of the VVER-440 core fuel in order to make sure that we can always secure enough fuel for also the Dukovany.
Okay. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you want to ask a question, please press zero and one. There are no further questions. Barbara Seidlová, I hand back to you.
Okay. Thank you everyone for taking part in the call. As always, if some follow-up questions come up to your mind, please contact investor relations. Thank you very much and hear you next quarter at the latest. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect.