EnBW’s Offshore Wind Has Its Ups and Downs

German utility EnBW’s Renewable Energies department recorded an operating result (adjusted EBITDA) of EUR 223.2 million in the first nine months of 2016, a 42.8% jump compared to EUR 156.3 million EBITDA reported for the first three quarters of 2015, mainly due to the full commissioning of the EnBW Baltic 2 offshore wind farm in September 2015.

Accordingly, the share of the EBITDA for the company accounted for by Renewable Energies increased from 9.6 percent in the previous year to the current figure of 16.3 percent.

In the first nine months of this year, the wind strength at sea was, however, below the long-term average on which the company’s plans are based.

This reduced the contribution to earnings made by EnBW Baltic 2 so that the previous earnings forecast for Renewable Energies of 10 to 20 percent above the previous year has now been adjusted to between 0 and 10 percent above the previous year.

In the first nine months of 2016, EnBW recorded revenue of around EUR 14.3 billion and an EBITDA of EUR 1.37 billion. This represents a fall of around 16% compared to the previous year, which was primarily due to temporary effects in the area of power generation. These effects will be balanced out by the end of the year, the company said.

Therefore, EnBW has confirmed its forecast for the whole of the 2016 financial year and continues to expect an adjusted EBITDA of between 5 and 10 percent below the level in the previous year.