Hamburg's energy plants shine with record profits and a green future!

Hamburg's energy plants shine with record profits and a green future!

Hamburger Energiewerke (HEnW) presented its annual balance sheet for 2024 today and can look back on a remarkable result. Managing director Michael Prinz reported a profit of 48.9 million euros, which is 6.9 million euros above the planned result, but cannot quite match the previous year's result, which was 86.2 million euros, due to special effects from hedging transactions. Environment Senator Katharina Fegebank (Greens) was positive about the balance sheet and pointed out that the profit would be distributed in full to the Hamburgische Gesellschaft für Vermögens Beteiligung. The profit flows into the budget of the city of Hamburg, which underlines the economic importance of the energy plants.

A standout feature of 2024 was the acquisition of new contracts in the area of ​​district heating. Two new major customers in particular, Lufthansatechnik and the airport, contributed to the most successful sales year in the history of Hamburg district heating. With contracts for more than 90 megawatts of connected load, around 40,000 households could be supplied. To implement these projects, a new district heating pipeline will be built, which will drive the expansion of district heating in the north of Hamburg.

Progress in climate neutrality

The Hamburg energy works are increasingly relying on climate-friendly heat supply. The conversion of production towards climate-neutral heat sources is making progress. The doors will be open for commissioning of the new gas and steam turbine plant in the Hafen Energy Park at the end of 2025. The drilling work for the district heating tunnel under the Elbe has now been successfully completed. In addition, waste recycling in Borsigstrasse contributes more waste heat to the network through technical innovations, while the industrial waste heat from the copper manufacturer Aurubis contributes to the displacement of fossil heat sources.

HEnW has planned investments amounting to 480 million euros for 2024 in order to further advance the transformation process. Part of the profit, a total of 86 million euros, is to be invested in the heating transition. This shows that the Hamburg energy works not only focus on economic success, but also take responsibility for the ecological transformation.

The energy works currently supply around 160,000 customers with green electricity and gas and plan to soon offer individual packages that include heat pumps, solar systems and wall boxes for electric cars. These new offers are intended to help drive the energy transition even further and ensure a sustainable energy supply for customers.

Outlook for the coming years

The developments show that the Hamburg energy works are well on the way to achieving their climate neutrality goals by 2028 by being able to provide more than 50 percent climate-neutral heat. At the same time, the challenges are pointed out: According to the environmental authority's heat network suitability map, many Hamburg households will not be able to be connected to a heat network, which requires further efforts in planning and implementation.

With their positive balance sheet and ambitious future plans, the Hamburg energy works show that they are both economically strong and play an important role in the ecological energy transition. [ndr] reports that the progress made so far provides a solid basis for the coming years.

In addition, [unternehmen.hamburger-energiewerke.de] emphasizes that the Hamburger Energiewerke are determined to further advance the conversion to climate-neutral heat sources and thus ensure a sustainable energy supply.