Eon CEO Leonhard Birnbaum wants to work with partners to build an infrastructure to supply municipal, medium-sized and industrial companies with green hydrogen and green ammonia.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf Business for Eon is also good in the third quarter. The Essen-based energy group doubled its consolidated net income to around 2.2 billion euros after sales in the first nine months of the year had increased by 4.8 billion euros to a total of 48.1 billion euros compared to the previous year. The adjusted EBIT also rose to 2.4 billion euros.
Eon benefited above all from the elimination of the Covid-19 effect and the renewed rise in demand for electricity. As in the first six months, the group benefited not only from its operational business but also from a special effect: a refund as part of the nuclear phase-out.
Leonhard Birnbaum confirmed the forecast raised in August on Wednesday. The Eon boss, who replaced Johannes Teyssen in the spring, now expects earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) in a range of 4.4 to 4.6 billion euros. So far, Eon had expected 3.8 to 4.0 billion euros. He promised the adjusted net income of 2.2 to 2.4 billion euros. Here the management had so far announced 1.7 to 1.9 billion euros.
Among other things, Eon benefited from the cool weather in the first half of the year. Sales of gas were therefore significantly higher. At the same time, the energy company made progress in restructuring its sales business in Great Britain and was able to significantly reduce costs there.
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In addition, there is the special effect in the nuclear division, which Eon is currently handling with Preussen Elektra. In March, the federal government reached an agreement with the four nuclear companies on compensation because the final decision to phase out nuclear power in 2011, following a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court, was partially defective. In total, the four groups received compensation of 2.4 billion euros.
Investments in energy networks
The Karlsruhe judges had declared the decision at that time to be fundamentally legal and rejected complaints from the corporations. However, they criticized, among other things, the way the corporations were dealing with investments in their systems and with the amount of electricity that had actually been granted from the operation of the nuclear power plants.
In contrast to Vattenfall and RWE, Eon was granted only a small part of the compensation, but the group was able to reverse the purchase of electricity.
Eon invested the additional capital in, among other things, its energy networks and the modernization of the network infrastructure. In the first nine months, investments increased by around 500 million to 2.9 billion euros compared to the previous year.
More and more electric cars, heat pumps and solar systems are making the power grid much more complicated – and, above all, more digital. That is why the Essen-based energy giant acquired the necessary expertise with the digital start-up GridX in September. The electricity company has been working with the Munich start-up since 2017. Now he has taken over the majority in the start-up company.
The company, which was founded only five years ago, develops digital solutions for intelligent control in the power grid. For example, through the so-called bidirectional charging of electric cars. They should then not only consume the electricity, but should also be able to feed it back into the grid if necessary, thus helping to better compensate for the increasing fluctuations in solar and wind energy.
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