EnBW suffers losses from recession-driven demand dip
Germany's EnBW was hit hard by the recession in 2009, as both its power and gas business reacted to lower demand, company results showed on Thursday. Chairman Hans-Peter Villis said the company had concentrated on its core business in order to react to the "economically related fall in demand."
EnBW sold 119.7bn kWh of power in 2009, down by 8.3%. Revenue from the company's electricity generation and trading dropped by 7.2% and from its electricity grid and sales by 1.6%
On the gas side, its business also declined. Gas sales dropped by 5.7% to 65.8bn kWh, putting revenue 14.2% lower year on year.
Despite this, the company increased its German generation capacity by 2000MW, which it plans to build on in 2010. EnBW cited its current construction project RDK 8, which will expand the capacity of its existing hard coal power plant Rheinhafen-Dampfkraftwerk in Karlsruhe by 912MW, as a key development.
"RDK8 is progressing well and is expected to start generating power by New Year 2012," the company said. Other projects are also underway for 2010. "This year, we will generate the first electricity at our newly constructed hydroelectric power station in Rheinfelden and in our EnBW Windpark Baltic 1, in the German Baltic Sea," the chairman added.
While EnBW said it planned to expand its activities abroad, particularly in Turkey and the Czech Republic, the company also emphasised that it plans to change its generation mix at home. Particularly, it wants to boost the share of renewable energy in its portfolio mix.
EnBW plans to produce around 20%, or more than 14bn kWh, from such sources over the next decade. It added that nuclear power would remain an important resource to enable this shift in production by securing power generation during a transition period.
The company's profit fell by 20%, to €879m.
After increasing investment in 2009 by €4.4bn, the company is planning to invest €7.9bn over the next two years - with two-thirds of this pegged for "growth projects". These include the company's Etzel gas storage site in Lower Saxony, offshore wind farms Baltic 2, as well as increasing the company's extra-high-voltage grid capacity. MLDB
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