In Germany, the City of Berlin has announced that its municipal energy company Berlin Energie will be awarded the new concession for the electricity grid in Berlin. Sweden-headed energy major Vattenfall AB has had the concession rights, through its subsidiary Stromnetz Berlin GmbH and previously Bewag, for more than 20 years. Stromnetz Berlin GmbH was recently attested “super-efficient” in the nationwide efficiency comparison.
According to a statement, Vattenfall has conducted a dialogue with the City of Berlin about how to develop the electricity grid business and regrets the decision announced March 5, 2019, to award the concession rights to the municipal energy company.
We have long and successfully been running the electricity grid in Berlin and are of course disappointed with the decision of the city. We have proven that we have experience and competence to operate the grid efficiently and we had hoped to continue either as today or in a partnership with the City of Berlin, said Magnus Hall, President and CEO of Vattenfall.
Magnus Hall emphasizes that Berlin and Germany will continue to be an important business location and market for Vattenfall.
Overall, we see a very positive development in Germany with substantial customer growth to approximately 3.6 million electricity and gas customers in the German market. We want to continue to contribute to the German energy transition and see growth opportunities in for example decentralised energy solutions, renewable electricity and heat production, and the electrification of the transport sector, said Magnus Hall.
Stromnetz Berlin GmbH currently operates the electricity grid in Berlin, which among other things includes around 35 000 kilometers distribution network and more than 2.3 million network customers.
We have continuously developed and invested in the electricity grid of Berlin to meet the future challenges of the German energy transition. As a certificate on this, we were recently awarded the highest possible “super-efficiency” grading by the German Federal Network Agency. We, therefore, regret the decision by the City of Berlin and will analyse the selection statement in advance of a decision about our further course of action said Annika Viklund, Senior Vice President Business Area Distribution at Vattenfall.
