After profit increase

Treats for customers: Energie AG lowers electricity price

Energie AG - here CEO Leonhard Schitter - is investing hundreds of millions of euros in renewable energy projects.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Markus Wenzel, Energie AG/Robert Maybach)

Six days before Christmas, the more than 350,000 customers of Energie AG have been given something of an early present: CEO Leonhard Schitter has announced that the company is lowering the price of electricity. This could save up to 50 percent of its energy costs within a year.

Group turnover fell to 3.159 billion euros, while profit after tax rose to 316 million euros - and this good result, which is mainly due to the company's own hydropower production, will also enable Energie AG to reduce electricity prices from April 2025. The price of the "Ökostrom Loyal" tariff will be reduced - this applies to existing customers, "but also to new customers", says CEO Leonhard Schitter.

This measure makes the company one of the cheapest providers in Austria, emphasizes Schitter, who presented the figures for the 2023/24 financial year together with Chief Technology Officer Alexander Kirchner and Chief Financial Officer Andreas Kolar on Wednesday morning. At EUR 318.3 million, the company, which operates from Linz, invested more than ever before in a single year.

"And we want to keep up the pace," emphasized Kirchner. Postscript: "Every cent will flow into the energy transition." In 2024/25, 572 million euros will be invested, including in the construction of the new Traunfall power plant, the agrivoltaic plant in Pischelsdorf and the pumped storage power plant in Ebensee.

Sealing work slows down construction of the pumped storage power plant
Speaking of Ebensee: there has been a delay of "a few months" (in Kirchner's words) in the construction work for the pumped storage power plant. Water ingress is occurring around the cavern, which will also house the powerhouse, so sealing work has to be carried out here. The power plant is now expected to be commissioned in 2028. Previously, the start of operations had always been expected at the end of 2027.

Economic crisis reflected in electricity and gas demand
Energie AG is also feeling the effects of the economic crisis: according to Kolar, seven percent less electricity was consumed in the Upper Austrian company's grid in the last financial year compared to 2022/23, while gas demand fell by 12 percent. "Electricity demand will increase in the long and medium term," says Schitter, "and we are also expanding the grids in Upper Austria to meet this demand. We want to be the driving force behind the energy transition here."