MVV publishes strong results and demands more tempo for climate protection measures

“Our green investments and the initiatives we have taken in recent years are paying off ever more clearly”, said Dr. Georg Müller, CEO of MVV Energie AG (ISIN: DE000A0H52F5; WKN: A0H52F), when commenting on the company’s latest figures for the first nine months of its 2021 financial year. For the period from 1 October 2020 to 30 June 2021, the Mannheim-based energy company posted further growth and significant improvements in both sales and earnings. Operating earnings (adjusted EBIT) increased by 27 percent to Euro 265 million. At Euro 3.1 billion, sales were 14 percent higher than in the previous year.

“Despite the coronavirus pandemic, 2021 has been a strong year for MVV to date, with all operating segments driving this performance”, Dr. Müller added by way of summary. He attributed MVV’s growth above all to its activities in implementing the energy turnaround. “Our course of heading for climate neutrality has shaped investments, initiatives and plans across all areas of our company. We will consistently press ahead with further expanding renewable energies, establishing new services and gradually decarbonising our business.”

Results for the current financial year have benefited from the investment in the gas-fired CHP plant in Kiel, where Stadtwerke Kiel launched operations at the end of November 2019. Moreover, weather conditions also had a positive impact: Temperatures in the first nine months of the 2021 financial year were cooler than in comparative years, particularly in April and May. This led to higher turnover with gas and district heating. Electricity and gas turnover also benefited from higher trading volumes. Not only that, projects involving data centre solutions and the development of solar parks and windfarms also came to fruition, thus enabling the project development business to offset the reduction in earnings due to lower wind volumes.

Investments in future energy system
MVV expects to generate future earnings contributions from its ongoing investments in the energy system of the future. Over the past three years, for example, MVV has built what is one of Europe’s most modern energy from waste plants in the Scottish city of Dundee. The company will include this plant in its portfolio in the near future once trial operations and the legal building acceptance process are successfully completed. Another example of a sustainable circular economy is currently arising in Saxony-Anhalt, where MVV is building its second organic waste fermentation and energy generation plant to supplement the existing plant in Dresden. Furthermore, in Mannheim and Offenbach it is investing in a new technology that uses a thermal process to recover the phosphorous contained in sewage sludge in an environmentally friendly manner.

MVV’s wind portfolio also continues to grow. In March 2021, Stadtwerke Kiel took over a windfarm in Schleswig-Holstein that will be connected to the grid at the end of this year. In April, MVV acquired a windfarm in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Both windfarms are the result of proprietary project development by MVV’s subsidiaries Juwi and Windwärts.

Climate neutrality as key task for future
“Climate neutrality is the global epoch-making challenge facing us this decade”, stressed Dr. Müller and added: “What the energy turnaround needs now is more tempo and greater courage! The energy industry has a particularly important role to play in protecting the climate. Expanding renewable energies, the heating turnaround, sector coupling, e-mobility, smart cities – these all need energy.” The CEO therefore called on politicians to specify the framework for using climate-friendly technologies in more detail and to “find effective ways to deal with the bottlenecks”.

The EU aims to become climate neutral by 2050 and Germany has set itself the goal of reaching this target by 2045 already. To this end, the Federal Government has raised the national greenhouse gas reduction target to be reached by 2030 to –65 percent. The new interim target for 2040 amounts to –88 percent. MVV’s CEO viewed the political steps needed to achieve this as an enormous challenge that would only work if everyone involved within politics, business and society pulled together.

Green options for climate protection
For its own path to climate neutrality, the energy company plans to draw on as many “green options” and future technologies as possible. Explains Dr. Müller: “As an innovative and forward-looking company, we intend to become fully climate neutral, and in the longer term even CO₂-negative”. MVV itself will therefore be maintaining a high tempo when it comes to climate neutrality.

MVV’s sustainability-driven strategy has also convinced analysts at the prestigious ISS ESG rating agency. In the latest sustainability rating, MVV once again received Prime Status and, with its “B” grade, is one of the top three leading companies in the energy sector internationally when it comes to factoring ecological and social criteria into its corporate management.

Outlook raised once again
At the beginning of August, MVV already announced that it would further raise its full-year outlook for the 2021 financial year to account for its business performance to date. The company now expects year-on-year growth of around 10 to 15 percent in sales and around 20 to 25 percent in adjusted EBIT (2020: Euro 3.5 billion and Euro 233 million respectively). In this outlook, MVV assumes that the coro-navirus pandemic will have no further notable impact on the remainder of its financial year.

The complete quarterly statement is available online at www.mvv.de/investors.