MVV successfully maintains its #climatepositive course and performs well in a difficult environment

“Despite tough conditions, our strategy with its focus on climate protection and our broad portfolio proved their worth once again in the first half of our 2022 financial year”, declared Dr. Hansjörg Roll, a member of the Executive Board at the Mannheim-based energy company MVV (ISIN: DE000A0H52F5; WKN: A0H52F), when presenting the company’s half-year results (1 October 2021 – 31 March 2022) in Mannheim on Friday.

Sales increased to around Euro 2.7 billion in the first six months of the current financial year (previous year: Euro 2.1 billion), a development driven above all by the impact of significantly higher wholesale prices for electricity and gas. “Thanks to our forward-looking procurement management, we have so far been able to keep price adjustments for our customers within limits”, stressed Dr. Roll. Half-year earnings (adjusted EBIT) rose by 17 percent to Euro 262 million. Here, earnings benefited above all from the change in MVV’s investment portfolio and to a minor extent from listed electricity prices. Thanks to higher wind volumes and an expanded wind portfolio, the wind turbines also made positive earnings contributions.

Dr. Roll: “All in all, in the current year we have managed to maintain the higher level of earnings already achieved last year, and that despite significantly more difficult conditions due to the downstream impact of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which has also massively intensified volatility on the energy markets.” Based on its business performance to date, from an operating perspective MVV can confirm its earnings forecast for the 2022 financial year as a whole. From an operating perspective, the company still expects adjusted EBIT to be moderately higher than in the previous year. Earnings will additionally benefit from positive earnings contributions resulting from the change in MVV’s investment portfolio. Including these one-off effects, MVV expects adjusted EBIT to significantly exceed the previous year’s figure.

Energy supply security as top priority
The security of the heat and electricity supply has become more important than ever in recent weeks and months, explained Dr. Roll and added: “We are monitoring current events and the associated potential implications for MVV and our customers very closely. Where necessary, we are also taking steps to ensure we can meet the great responsibility we bear to uphold supply reliability.” He welcomed the fact that the Federal Government was working on ways to secure the energy supply and further accelerate the timescale for the energy turnaround, also as one answer to the consequences of the Ukraine war. “This is difficult, but in our opinion the only right way”, he stressed.

With its “Easter Package”, in March 2022 the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action initiated the first of the legislative packages previously announced in respect of the energy turnaround. “The proposed legislative changes clearly show that the Federal Government is retaining the targets set out in the Coalition Agreement”, summarised Dr. Roll. It is thus planned to anchor the principle that expanding renewable energies is in the overriding public interest and upholds public security in the German Renewable Energies Act (EEG). According to Dr. Roll, this move was “not just symbolic, but may also impact positively on approval processes”.

The Mannheim Model – for the energy turnaround and independence from fossil energies
“The war in Ukraine makes it clear for all to see: The pace of the energy turnaround has to be stepped up to enable us to become independent even sooner from fossil fuels, and thus from energy imports”, underlined Dr. Roll. With the Mannheim Model and its three components – electricity turnaround, heat turnaround and green customer solutions – MVV had committed itself before the outbreak of war already to a strategic course with which it intends to consistently replace fossil-based energy generation and become one of the first climate-positive companies in Germany from 2040. Dr. Roll: “This way, we are deliberately skipping the interim step of using natural gas, for example to generate district heating in Mannheim, and that irrespective of the current conflict.”

By 2030, MVV will fully convert its district heating supply in Mannheim and the region from fossil fuels to 100 percent green energy sources. In this, MVV would build “on the broadest green electricity and heat portfolio at any German energy company”, according to Dr. Roll. MVV took a further major step forward as it heads for Green Heat at the beginning of April with the groundbreaking ceremony for the first river heat pump on the Rhine, located at the site of the large power plant Grosskraftwerk Mannheim. “This will promote the energy turnaround and raise independence from energy imports”, stressed Dr. Roll. One of the largest heat pumps in Europe, it is scheduled to be connected to the grid in 2023.

“Rapidly and massively expanding renewable energies in the electricity and heat sectors is absolutely crucial if we are to become more independent of coal, gas and oil imports in future”, commented Dr. Roll. The MVV Group is pressing ahead with the energy turnaround, also outside Germany, as is demonstrated by one example in the solar power segment of the international project development business: MVV’s subsidiary Juwi has built the largest bifacial photovoltaics power plant in Europe in just 18 months. The construction of a 2.9-megawatt open-space solar park in the Japanese province of Nagano, where Juwi will manage operations, was also completed in the first half of 2022. Moreover, in February 2022 Juwi was awarded contracts for three solar parks with total capacity of more than 12 megawatts in the seventh tender round in Italy.

MVV subsidiaries Juwi and Windwärts to act together in future
Furthermore, MVV’s Executive Board announced that the two project development companies Juwi and Windwärts would be merged in the near future to enable them “together to exploit the opportunities and potential offered by renewable energies even more effectively in future”. With a joint strategy and new brand positioning, the company will operate under the name “Juwi” and, as previously, continue to focus on growth in Germany and abroad under the auspices of MVV Energie AG. Dr. Roll: “This way, we will strengthen and extend our role as a key driver of the energy turnaround and promote the further expansion in a climate-neutral energy supply.”

The complete quarterly statement can be found at www.mvv.de/investoren