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Germany's third largest electricity producer EnBW declares the group restructuring to be complete.
Now it's back on the offensive, says CEO Frank Mastiaux in an interview with WELT.
EnBW wants to bring in a historic record profit of three billion euros by 2025.
For the first time, charging stations for electric cars will also contribute to this.
WORLD:
Mr. Mastiaux, there is no company that sets up as many charging stations across Germany as EnBW.
Isn't that a pure grant business?
Frank Mastiaux:
If you ask whether a fast charging station that I am installing today will pay for itself in a year, the answer is no.
But after weighing it up, we decided not to wait until five million electric cars are on the road, but to occupy good locations early on.
Last year, EnBW built around half of Germany's fast charging infrastructure.
This makes us the market leader in Germany.
And we assume that we will earn money with it by 2025 at the latest.
EnBW boss Frank Mastiaux wants to earn money with fast charging stations by 2025 at the latest
Source: picture alliance / dpa
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WORLD:
Why do you make such advance payments?
Infrastructure is actually a government responsibility.
Mastiaux:
There is currently a consensus in Germany that the charging infrastructure will be developed privately.
A functioning market with lively competition for the best locations for charging stations should soon develop.
This is already becoming apparent.
We expect ten million electric cars in Germany by 2030.
We are preparing for this with investments of the order of 100 million euros annually.
In addition, we have invested a lot of resources in developing an app that makes loading as easy as possible for our customers.
With the emobility-plus app, e-car drivers have roaming access to 150,000 charging points in many European countries in addition to our 500 fast charging stations in Germany, which we will double this year - and thanks to our roaming contracts, they pay the same price everywhere.
Unpleasant price surprises at the charging station are therefore excluded on our part.
WORLD:
Where should the electricity for all the electric cars come from?
Baden-Württemberg in particular will need more and more electricity imports in the next few years due to the phase-out of coal and nuclear power.
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Mastiaux: From a
purely formal point of view, it is the responsibility of the network operator and the Federal Network Agency to guarantee the security of the electricity supply.
As an energy company, we want to make a contribution here regardless.
For example, we are examining the extent to which we can convert coal-fired power plants to climate-friendly gas firing in the future, and in the next step we are preparing for the hydrogen economy.
EnBW has also increased its renewable energy capacity eightfold since 2013.
This includes, for example, the largest German solar park in Brandenburg, which is one of the first to no longer require funding from the EEG surcharge.
The same applies to an offshore wind farm that we are going to build in the North Sea.
Unfortunately, however, we are currently unable to build as many wind farms in Germany as we would like.
That is why we are active in selected foreign markets.
WORLD:
What is stopping you?
Mastiaux:
The approval processes for wind farms in Germany are now long and extremely time-consuming.
If the federal states, municipalities, district offices and other authorities are as heavily involved as is currently the case, it now takes 70 months from the first plan to the commissioning of the wind turbines.
On this basis, we as a company cannot make economically reliable calculations.
And the expansion targets for renewable energies that we have set ourselves in Germany cannot be achieved in this way either.
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WELT:
Your main shareholder, the green state government in Stuttgart, will not like to hear that.
After all, it's about climate goals.
Mastiaux:
When in doubt, you don't like to hear that anywhere.
However, one has to face these facts and this problem.
If, on the one hand, you want to achieve an ambitious expansion target of 65 percent or even 70 percent renewable energies for 2030 and at the same time the processes are not significantly accelerated in order to achieve these goals, the gap between aspiration and reality will very quickly become very large.
WORLD:
Instead, you are building wind farms in the USA, Taiwan or, most recently, together with the energy multinational BP, in the Irish Sea off Great Britain.
Isn't that a little bit of globalization for a supplier from inland southwest Germany?
Mastiaux:
We have gained a lot of experience in the construction and operation of offshore wind farms since 2009.
Most recently, our projects were on time and on budget.
Our He Dreiht offshore wind farm in the North Sea will produce electricity in 2025 without EEG subsidies.
If you have a first-class team of around 200 people in this field, there are many reasons to use this expertise and seize the opportunities that arise in selected foreign markets.
There has been no offshore auction in Germany since 2018.
The planned offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea, which we are planning with BP as a partner, will one day produce enough electricity for 3.4 million people with an output of 3,000 megawatts.
You could say that this major project is also another milestone for our offshore team and also for the growth phase of corporate development that EnBW is now entering.
WORLD:
You like to think in terms of seven-year plans.
After you took office, the task was to free a highly indebted group of unprofitable fossil fuel power plants by 2020 and to convert them for the energy transition.
Mastiaux:
We started in 2013 with the aim of achieving the operating result of 2.4 billion euros at the time after seven years with a completely different portfolio, namely a portfolio that is completely geared towards the energy transition.
We achieved that in 2019, a year ahead of time.
This period of restructuring was also associated with growth.
Now, however, this conversion phase has been completed and we are concentrating on our growth opportunities, including in business areas that go beyond the traditional energy business.
The next goal is to increase earnings again by a third to over three billion euros in 2025.
This is a new altitude in the company's history.
WELT:
That is an ambitious goal simply because there are no reliable political guard rails for the energy transition to date.
It is unclear whether and how the expansion of wind power can be advanced again.
The entire design of the energy market must also be rethought for the world of weather-dependent green electricity.
Why do you set such specific goals in a time of uncertainty?
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Mastiaux:
Ten years ago, the weal and woe of EnBW depended almost entirely on the traditional power plant business.
There was too great a risk of lumps, i.e. too few eggs in the basket from a business perspective.
The massive shift to renewable energies, combined with the nuclear phase-out and the drastic decline in the profitability of conventional power plants, then hit the entire industry and us hard.
We don't want this to happen to us again.
We will balance our risks better in the future by addressing several selected future topics.
In telecommunications, this includes broadband expansion, electromobility, smart infrastructure for urban districts and, in the longer term, the hydrogen economy.
All of these business areas have great potential.
This ensures that the basis for the targeted growth is not too broad, but stable.
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