Profit explosion

Wien Energie has 598 million euros on the high edge

The record profit is to flow into "record investments".

(Bild: APA/Helmut Fohringer)

Wien Energie can easily afford the latest electricity price hikes: at 598 million euros, its annual profit has recently tripled. The regional energy supplier promises that all of this will flow back to the population, even if only in part via the electricity, gas and district heating bills.

A profit of almost 600 million euros in just one year is a lot of money, even for Wien Energie. If you compare this with the average profit of 211 million euros between 2018 and 2021, this means no less than 387 million euros in excess profit, i.e. a tripling of the black figures within just two years. Compared to the 2022 balance sheet alone, with a plus of 386 million, profits have grown by 212 million.

Top of the league in Austria
In absolute figures, Wien Energie is therefore also the record holder among all provincial utilities, followed by Lower Austria's EVN with a profit of EUR 581 million and Carinthia's Kelag with EUR 463 million, according to an Austria-wide evaluation by the employee-oriented Momentum Institute. Kelag, however, outperforms Wien Energie when it comes to profit growth: here the increase has more than quadrupled.

"Toothless" tax?

According to their 2023 balance sheets, all nine provincial utilities together generated a profit of around 2.48 billion. This represents a plus of 1.45 billion, measured against the average profits before the inflation and price shock from 2022. Together with Verbund and OMV, the excess profit of the domestic energy industry even amounted to over three billion euros. Only 5.8 percent of this had to be paid to the state, which the Momentum Institute believes proves the "toothlessness of the excess profit tax".

Wien Energie intends to invest the money primarily in measures to reduce its dependence on gas imports.

(Bild: wienerstadtwerke.at)

Wien Energie points to relief measures
While the Vienna FPÖ sees "shamelessness in a class of its own" in the profits made while energy prices are "horrendous", Wien Energie emphasizes that the profits are hardly based on consumer payments, but rather on the "successful marketing of electricity from the power plants on the wholesale energy market". In addition, the money will flow back to the Viennese: This year, the company has spent 351 million euros on relief measures, and with current offers for gas and electricity prices, it is one of the cheapest providers.

Above all, however, Wien Energie promises "record investments in independence and affordable energy": record investments of more than 320 million euros have already been made in 2023, while 2.6 billion euros will be invested over the next five years to make energy consumption more climate-friendly and protect it against external influences, primarily through photovoltaics, wind power, large heat pumps and deep geothermal energy.