Supplementary budget / financing / investment – implementation of the energy transition to achieve Berlin’s climate goals gains pace

• The 2024 Berlin supplementary budget ensures the achievement of climate goals / electrical grid becomes a further backbone of the heating transition
• Investment – from one all-time high to the next – € 337 million planned for 2024
• Very good business result achieved in 2023

 17.04.2024 

The energy transition is picking up speed in Berlin. Whether with the use of solar energy or the increased acceptance of electromobility with the expansion of charging infrastructure, progress is being made. But the challenges of the accelerated energy and heating transition, alongside development in the fields of mobility and digitalisation, remain enormous. Berlin is undergoing a profound transformative process, something that presents a special set of long-term problems for the capital's electrical grid. Investment on a massive scale will be needed and must – if Berlin is to reach its climate goals – be solidly and sustainably funded. For 2024, this has required a supplementary budget for Berlin, adopted by the City Parliament at the end of March. 

In a joint press conference of the Senate Administration of Economy, Energy and Enterprise, BEN Berlin Energie und Netzholding GmbH and Stromnetz Berlin, Senator Franziska Giffey and Managing Directors Stephan Boy and Dr Erik Landeck explained the supplementary budget and reported what was going to be done with the money. 

Franziska Giffey, Senator for Economy, Energy and Enterprise: 'We are working towards reaching a climate-neutral Berlin before 2045. Stromnetz Berlin is an extremely important partner in this. The electricity requirements and demands made of our Berlin electrical grid are set to grow massively because of the switch to e-mobility, the heating transition and the solar expansion. We must almost double the grid capacity in the next ten years from 2.2 GW to 4.1 GW. For this reason, we have taken the right, future-oriented decision to increase the capital of the parent company Berlin Energie und Netzholding (BEN) this year and next year by a total of € 300 million, provided through a supplementary budget. With this, we are acknowledging the investment needed for secure, sustainable electricity supplies.: 

Speaking for BEN Berlin Energie und Netzholding GmbH, Managing Director Stephan Boy said:

“'The capital investment promised by the Senate and the City Parliament brings BEN the necessary stability and sustainability in its financial underpinnings, meaning it can continue to conclude successful financing arrangements with the banks. These increasing levels of financing over the coming years are needed in order to make the additional investment in Stromnetz Berlin required by the energy, heating and transport transitions. The capital investment ensures the sustainable further development of electrical energy infrastructure. For this reason, I thank the State of Berlin for making it happen.' 

An investment campaign set to double the grid capacity

Stromnetz Berlin wants to invest more than two billion euro in the coming five years. The money will be put into extending or converting the Berlin grid to fit the needs of the energy, heating and mobility transition, and to reflect increasing digitalisation. In 2024 alone the company will set aside € 337 million (after € 278 million the year before) for investment, thus continue its long-standing investment plan f with a new all-time high. 

Last year, the State-owned company had already announced that the contemporary changes in the fields of energy, transport and heating in the city would require the massive expansion of the electricity distribution grid. In view of these forecasts and to ensure proactive planning, Stromnetz Berlin assumed it would be necessary to double the grid capacity over a period of ten years. Current load developments of customers,particularly major customers in the high-voltage sector, are very dynamic, and could rise further. Alongside this, ever-greater quantities of power are being drawn by the transmission grid. 

With a run-down of the figures, Stromnetz Berlin Managing Director Dr Erik Landeck made the mammoth task of the next few years clear: 'We are going to build, build, build. Under our current plans, this means setting up and renovating 13 grid nodes and 29 substations, building around 2,000 new grid and customer stations and laying approximately 6,000 kilometres of cabling. Some of these are large, complex and time-consuming construction projects, but they are essential if we want the transformation to succeed. Over the course of the energy transition, this also means, for example, that we need to provide intelligent metering systems, so-called “smart meters”, for around 360,000 new solar facilities, heat pumps or controllable equipment such as charging infrastructure. We are working at all voltage levels; providing a modern, high-performance grid always remains our central goal.'

The Managing Director also emphasised that Stromnetz Berlin would actively support the State of Berlin in reaching its climate goals. With regard to the acquisition of district heating by the State of Berlin, Landeck declared that the company would also play an essential role in the heating transition. Both through the connection of heat pumps on a massive scale and the provision of powerful grid connections for Berlin's district heating system – for example, for the establishment of power-to-heat plants – the electrical distribution grid will remain a backbone of Berlin's heating transition, contributing actively to the decarbonisation of the heat supply to the city. 

'Great challenges face Stromnetz Berlin, and our owner has high expectations of its grid operator. With our prospective grid planning – with measures to increase performance in our company and become more efficient, including organisational adjustments and the active search for the best people in the next generation of experts and specialists – we want to live up to the long-term challenges that face us and justify the trust people have placed in us,'Erik Landeck continued.  

A very good business result in 2023 

In its third year since remunicipalisation, Stromnetz Berlin achieved very good earnings after taxes of € 98.1 million (previous year: € 82.7 million). In 2023 the company revenue rose to € 1,351.9 million after € 1,263.0 million the year before. Because of the energy crisis and conscious energy-saving activity among all customer groups, electricity transport through the Berlin grid was temporarily reduced to 12,210 gigawatt-hours (GWh / previous year: 12,523 GWh). The concession fee paid to the State of Berlin ran to € 139.7 million (2022: € 137.5 million) with the number of employees growing by the end of 2023 to 1,808 (previous year: 1,668). 

Erik Landeck stated, regarding the company's balance sheet: 'We have a very successful year behind us.

Considering the very diverse challenges ahead that need to be dealt with, from the continued increase in investment activity to establishing efficient processes in a rapidly growing organisation, we are very pleased with what we have achieved.'