RWE Innogy improved its operating result to EUR 151 million in the first quarter of this year, which is a 56% increase compared to the same period in the previous year. This was largely due to the commissioning of new wind turbines, the company said.
For example, the Welsh offshore wind farm Gwynt y Môr already produced electricity from a large portion of its 576-megawatt (MW) capacity in the first quarter and the construction of the Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm (290 MW) near Heligoland is also at an advanced stage.
“These investments are increasingly paying off,” said Peter Terium, CEO of RWE AG . Gwynt y Môr and Nordsee Ost are scheduled to begin generating electricity commercially from all turbines in the middle of 2015. “They will start to provide stable returns at that point,” Terium added.
Overall, business performance progressed as planned during the first quarter of 2015, RWE said. As expected, the continued drop in margins in conventional electricity generation resulted in earnings shortfalls. RWE’s EBITDA declined by 3% to EUR 2.2 billion. The operating result fell by 5% to EUR 1.6 billion. By contrast, recurrent net income improved by 10% to EUR 877 million. This resulted from one-off items from the sale of securities, which had a positive effect on the financial result. External revenue increased by 3%, to EUR 14.6 billion.
RWE has confirmed its outlook for the 2015 fiscal year that was released in March 2015. The Group still anticipates that EBITDA will be between EUR 6.1 billion and EUR 6.4 billion and its operating result will total between EUR 3.6 billion and EUR 3.9 billion, with recurrent net income expected to be between EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.3 billion.
Image: RWE