The swedish energy group vattenfall achieved a net increase of almost 8 percent in the first half of 2019. Profit in the first six months of the year was 7.7 billion kroner (730.6 million euros), he said.
Net sales rose to 84.2 billion kronor from 75 billion kronor in the first half of 2018, the company announced friday in solna, near stockholm. The swedish energy group's earnings before interest and taxes, adjusted for non-recurring items, were 13.3 billion swedish kronor in the first half of 2019, up 1.3 percent on the same period of the previous year.
"You can say that we have a very stable development," vattenfall CEO magnus hall told the german press agency. The storm "alfrida" caused costs of almost one billion crowns for vattenfall at the beginning of the year. However, this and weaker sales figures have been offset by better results in electricity production. "This is more or less balancing out compared to the previous year," hall said.
Vattenfall has set itself the goal of generating electricity and heat without the use of fossil fuels within one generation. This strategy seems to be bearing fruit: in 2017, the swedes were in the black for the first time in four years, and the state-owned company also posted positive results in 2018.
Offshore wind power is one of the most important growth areas for the company, hall explained. Just a week ago the group won the contract for the second section of the dutch wind farm hollandse kust zuid. "This is an important signal of where we are heading," hall told dpa.
Germany remains the largest market in sales and also a very exciting market for the state-owned company, hall said. At the end of 2018, vattenfall had more than 3.2 million private customers in germany in addition to its business customers, accounting for almost half of the total number of private customers, according to the company's annual report. The number of german customers is growing, says hall.
But not everything is running smoothly in the federal republic. The dispute over the so-called residual electricity volume for the krummel nuclear power plant in geesthacht in schleswig-holstein, which was shut down in 2011, remains unclear. The electricity company preussenelektra wants the power plant operating company, which is jointly owned with vattenfall, to transfer half of the remaining electricity without compensation to it for use at the grohnde nuclear power plant (lower saxony). Vattenfall wants to see money. An initial ruling by the hamburg district court is expected on 29 june. August to be announced.
There is also a dispute in berlin: vattenfall has lodged an appeal against the senate's decision at the beginning of march to award its competitor berlin energie the contract to operate berlin's electricity network. Vattenfall has proposed a cooperation model to the city, hall said. "We want to be a good partner for the city of Berlin."