RWE ramps up renewables investment after strong growth

German utility RWE raised its forecast for the year today after it reported strong growth for the first half of 2022 and also announced it would increase investment in green technology to €5.17bn this year.

by Ian Griggs 11 August 2022

RWE's chief executive Markus Krebber said the company will ramp up its investment in renewables

The company said adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebita) at group level for the first half of 2022 were €2,858 million, compared with €1,751 million for the first half of 2021.

Adjusted Ebit for the first half of 2022 was €2,104 million, double the €1,042 million achieved in the same period last year.

Adjusted net income also improved, RWE said, increasing to €1,566 million from €870 million last year.

The company said it could now confirm provisional figures released last month and raised its forecasts for adjusted group Ebitda to €5.0-5.5bn, from a previous target of €3.6-4.0bn, and net income to 2.1-2.6bn, from €1.3-1.7bn, for the full year of 2022.

Offshore figures

Adjusted Ebitda for offshore wind in the first half of 2022 was €632 million, up from €459 million last year. The company attributed the figure to commissioning new capacity as well as higher wind levels than the previous year. RWE said it expected adjusted Ebitda for offshore wind of between €1.3 and €1.6 billion for the whole year.

Onshore figures

Grouping onshore wind with solar, RWE gave an adjusted Ebitda of €491 million. It said earnings were negative in the same period last year due to losses of €400 million caused by extreme weather in Texas, in the US.

RWE said it expected adjusted Ebitda of between €0.9 billion and €1.1 billion for 2022 for this area of the business.

Green investment

Markus Krebber, RWE’s chief executive, said: “In the first half of 2022 our earnings increased significantly, and on the back of this we have raised our forecast for the whole year. The earnings we are generating will benefit the energy transition.”

Krebber also explained how the company planned to increase investment in the expansion of renewable technology.

He added: “This year alone we are investing more than €5 billion in expanding our green portfolio, which is about 30% more than originally planned. We are investing in offshore and onshore wind, solar, batteries and in ramping up the hydrogen economy. All this is urgently needed in order to make energy supply more independent and climate-neutral.”