A year ago, Mainova still felt "on track" according to the annual report, this year the largest energy supplier in the region is trying to reinterpret the unrest in its business positively and has titled its balance sheet for 2022 with "seize opportunities". In between, says CEO Constantin Alsheimer, lies a year full of risks. From which the largest energy supplier in the region had nevertheless gone out with a profit of 125.4 million euros. However, this was 40 million euros less than in 2021.
Inga Janović
Editor in the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and responsible editor of the business magazine Metropol.
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This indicates how turbulent the past year was, in which the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatened security of supply and drove up energy prices. The sales figures show even better how strong the effect really was: Within one year, Mainova had to spend 1.6 billion euros more to procure natural gas, electricity, coal and heating oil for its power plants and customers.
This is the main reason why total sales rose from 2.87 billion to 4.56 billion euros. As expected, business with gas was worse, revenues from renewable energies rose by EUR 24 million to almost EUR 33 million, and district heating fell sharply because of the rise in raw material prices, but above all also the increased prices for emission certificates.
The goal is climate neutrality by 2040
The large sums will continue in the coming years. They would even have to be larger than those that Mainova has already written into its plans, says Alsheimer, who wants to give up his board position at Mainova in the course of this year and switch to Thüga.
The utility will invest two billion euros in the maintenance, expansion and conversion of its infrastructure by 2027. In 2023, a good 600 million euros are planned for repairs and the expansion of the district heating network, the construction of the new power plant in the Westhafen and the expansion of the electricity grid, the capacity of which Mainova wants to double by the middle of the next decade.
For the major goal of being climate-neutral by 2040, i.e. to manage the supply without fossil fuels, much larger sums would have to flow. "The expansion of the district heating supply and the electricity grids alone requires a further ten million euros," says Alsheimer and points out once again that the heating market, i.e. heating, has the greatest energy demand in the city of Frankfurt. Getting by here without natural gas and coal is even more difficult than switching the electricity supply to renewables.
Heat pumps are not included
To this end, the utility invests in solar parks and wind energy, operates a waste incineration plant and a biogas plant. In addition, he assumes that one day he will only fire the combined heat and power plant West, in which district heating and electricity are produced in combined heat and power, with clean hydrogen. In the name, this change has already succeeded: For a long time it was said that Mainova would build a gas-fired power plant next to the current coal-fired power plant by 2026, now there is only talk of a hydrogen power plant.
In the beginning, however, it will probably be natural gas flowing into the burners. This also reduces carbon dioxide emissions considerably. However, it is planned from the outset in such a way that one hundred percent hydrogen could be burned, said the responsible Mainova board member Martin Giehl. By 2030 at the latest, Mainova wants to be able to supply all Frankfurt households with electricity generated without any additional carbon dioxide emissions.
However, the mass use of heat pumps, for which Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (The Greens) is currently promoting, is not envisaged in this scenario. To do this, you would first have to bring enough electricity into the city, says Giehl. In the foreseeable future, he thinks this is impossible. In any case, Mainova is primarily focusing on the expansion of district heating. In the future, she wants to heat the apartments of half the city, including sources such as waste heat from data centers.
In the other districts, she wants to work with gases, be it natural gas or hydrogen, and electricity. The expansion of the necessary infrastructure will be planned together with the city of Frankfurt, Alsheimer announced. He does not believe in sweeping pleas for one or the other technology. "What we need are heating plans in the municipalities," says the Mainova boss.
He sees a need for support from Berlin elsewhere. Since the energy business has proven to be so risky, it is more difficult to finance the necessary investments with the banks. Politicians would have to try to find solutions here.