Successful pursuit of strategy objectives by the Enea Group and spurt of investments in renewable energy sources

In 2024, the Enea Group saw some favorable changes and activities that enabled it to delineate the directions of its transition endeavors and determine the Group’s growth strategy for the next 10 years. Owing to the Group’s stable financial and operational performance across all business segments, Enea is on the right track to fulfilling the objectives laid down in its strategy. The Group is boosting its generation potential in the RES segment, expanding the range of modern and green products and services for customers, and carrying out projects aimed at digitization, automation and improvement of energy efficiency. The green strategy pursuit solidifies the Company’s market position and improves shareholder value, as reflected by the Group’s year-on-year EBITDA growth.

Wrap-up of 2024 by Enea:

• The Group defined its business strategy for the next 10 years, seeing its opportunity in undergoing a transition into a green and modern utility company.
• The Group’s EBITDA stood at PLN 6.8 billion, up 8% y/y. Revenue from sales and other income reached nearly PLN 33 billion.
• The Group generated almost 20.4 TWh of electricity, having increased its production from renewable energy sources by approx. 28%.
• Capital expenditures totaled nearly PLN 3.4 billion (including almost PLN 1.9 billion in distribution, mainly for connecting new customers and sources and modernizing the grid).
• The funding obtained will translate into a spurt of investments, including in the transition of generation and distribution assets.

Sustainable transition of the Enea Group

The twelve months of 2024 saw Enea make various intensive endeavors to maintain its strong position in a changing environment. The adopted Development Strategy of the Enea Group until 2035 has set the direction for the Group’s transition into a green, reliable and state-of-the-art utility conglomerate. The group focuses on sustainable development and transition, based on the following five strategic pillars: transition of coal assets, development of renewable energy capacity and energy storage, upgrade and security of the distribution grid, development of modern green products and services for customers, and operational excellence by increasing the Group’s overall efficiency, especially in terms of digitization and automation. The projects carried out in 2024 supported the Group’s strategic objectives in all its lines of business.

Investments are changing the Group’s generation mix 

Enea is expanding its share in the renewable energy sources market. The Group added 14 MW of capacity in photovoltaic farms (PV Żary, PV Nowiny Wielkie and PV Darżyno I). At the beginning of 2025, the Group doubled its wind power capacity by acquiring six wind farms with a total capacity of 83.5 MW. These state-of-the-art installations, located in Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship, were purchased from European Energy. A pipeline of 1.29 GW of renewable energy projects and energy storage facilities to be built in the coming years was also prepared.

Negotiations are underway at the Kozienice Power Plant regarding the terms of cooperation with the contractor for the construction of two combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) units. The intended units, with a rated gross capacity in the range of 650-750 MWe, will operate in a combined cycle (as CCGT units). Already at the concept stage, this investment project of strategic significance for Enea was designed with innovative solutions in mind. Adapting the units to the co-firing of hydrogen will further reduce the plant’s emission volumes. At the Kozienice Power Plant, analytical work is also underway on the preliminary feasibility study for the project to adapt its 500 MW class units (nos. 9 and 10) to the co-firing of biomass in order to reduce the CO₂ emission rate to below 550 g per kWh.

A project similar to the CCGT units at the Kozienice Power Plant is being considered at the Połaniec Power Plant, where analytical and preparatory work is currently underway. The power plant has obtained the administrative conditions for connection to the gas network and is awaiting the issue of the conditions for connection to the electricity network. The goal to green up the coal-fired units and reduce the Group’s carbon footprint is part of the transition efforts involving the generation sources at both power plants.

ESG reporting contributes to the successful management of the Group

Enea implemented various changes in its corporate governance area by largely modernizing and simplifying it. These changes have resulted in an improvement in the decision-making power of Group companies by transferring competence centers to them and streamlined the management of the whole Group.

The Enea Group’s business growth and pursuit of strategic objectives are supported by the ESG area, being continuously developed as a key element of corporate long-term strategic management. The Group is working on an ESG strategy that will outline a roadmap focused on environmental protection and promotion of business transparency, diversity and equal opportunities. The strategy, along with various projects targeted at supporting climate and environmental protection, sustainable supply chain management and adaptation to climate change and risk management, will be pursued in 2025. The Group’s ESG measures support a fair transition in consideration of the related risks and opportunities as well as social and environmental factors.

Financial security for the Group’s transition plan

Enea issued PLN 2 billion worth of bonds and entered into several loan agreements to speed up its investments. This included a PLN 1 billion loan for investment projects in the distribution area from the European Investment Bank (EIB), PLN 1 billion for investments in the RES area, obtained under an agreement with Bank Pekao S.A. and PKO Bank Polski, and PLN 1 billion from Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego for the purchase, preparation, construction, upgrade and maintenance of renewable energy sources.

Attractive product offering supported by digitization and process automation

A new company by the name of Enea Eko was established and went operational with a view to disseminating energy efficiency across the Group and developing products and services based on energy efficiency analysis. The company offers energy efficiency and transition services to enterprises and local government entities. The new business line pursues the Enea Group’s vision of the green transition.

Enea expanded its group of products with EKO Oferta to combine electricity sales with purchases of guarantees of its origin from renewable energy sources. The product is offered to both retail and business customers.

The expansion of the green offering that is attractive to customers is reinforced by the development of the digital services area. As part of a long-term program to deploy leading-edge forms of customer service, the Company launched the Moja Enea mobile app for retail and business customers. The app streamlines customer service processes by providing convenience and flexibility in the handling of electricity-related matters. It also fulfills the goal of digitizing processes in modern customer service.

Efficient distribution grid management

The Group is intensifying its efforts to increase grid flexibility. Enea Operator introduced the Emergency Active Power Delivery (IDC), which has already been joined by more than 140 entities for a capacity of 70 MW. As follow-up steps, emergency alignment of reactive power on the company’s instructions and network optimization using energy storage are intended.

Enea Operator completed a tender for the purchase of 3 million remote reading meters to be installed at end-user facilities by 2030. Owing to the ongoing monitoring of the quality of the supplied electricity, smart meters will enable a more efficient and flexible management of the operation and development of the distribution network and an improved monitoring of energy consumption by customers. The company intends to spend nearly PLN 1.3 billion on the delivery of smart meters by 2030.

The Group improved the efficiency and transparency of the RES connection process to its grid by perfecting communication with RES generators and the manner of handling the review and issuance of connection conditions and the project implementation process.

Stable financial and operating performance in all areas of the Group’s business

In 2024, the Enea Group’s EBITDA was PLN 6.8 billion, up 8% y/y. Revenue from sales and other income stood at nearly PLN 33 billion, compared to PLN 48.2 billion in 2023. Net profit for the reporting period improved year-on-year and reached PLN 956 million. The LTM net debt/EBITDA ratio stood at 0.46, compared to 0.85 in 2023.

The highest EBITDA of PLN 3.56 billion was attained in the Generation Area (down slightly by 1.3% y/y). In 2024, the Group generated nearly 20.4 TWh of electricity, in which the share of renewable energy sources (water, wind and solar) totaled almost 0.4 TWh. Generation from renewable sources went up by nearly 28% y/y. Sales of heat in the Generation Area reached almost 6 PJ (petajoules).

In the Distribution Area, EBITDA stood at PLN 2.28 billion (up more than 25% y/y). In 2024, Enea Operator provided nearly 20 TWh of distribution services to end users. In 2024, more than 16 thousand renewable energy sources (including micro-installations) were connected to its network. At yearend 2024, the number of micro-installations connected to the network was almost 190 thousand with a total capacity of nearly 1.8 GW.

The Trading Area’s EBITDA was PLN -4.1 million (up PLN 25.8 million y/y). In 2024, the volume of electricity sales to retail customers reached nearly 24.8 TWh and was higher by almost 11.7%. Total revenue from sales of electricity in 2024 declined by 8.2% compared to 2023, reflecting the decline in electricity prices on the wholesale market.

In Q4 2024 alone, LW Bogdanka’s consolidated revenue from sales was PLN 1.06 billion. EBITDA stood at PLN 441.8 million.

COMMENTS ON THE ENEA GROUP’S 2024 PERFORMANCE:

Grzegorz Kinelski, CEO of Enea: 

“Last year, we focused on intensive work to define and plan the strategic directions for the Group’s growth, roll out modern management standards and simplify our internal processes. We entered 2025 with an ambitious transition plan, which we are already pursuing – in a responsible manner and with attention to environmental and social aspects, including the needs of our employees.

We continue our expansion in the renewable energy sector. Construction work is currently underway on new RES generation facilities with a total capacity of 134 MW. We are expanding our portfolio of own photovoltaic and wind projects. The total capacity of this portfolio has already exceeded 850 MW. We are also making efforts to acquire additional wind sources and we are working on the construction of energy storage facilities – for cooperation with existing and intended renewable energy installations and for the provision of services aimed at improving the flexibility of our distribution network. In cooperation with Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, we are wrapping up the process of obtaining a preferential loan from the National Reconstruction Plan (NRP) for the transition of our distribution assets. We are focusing on long-term value creation by carrying out a variety of strategic business projects.”

Artur Wasilewski, Vice-President of the LW Bogdanka Management Board for Economic and Financial Matters:

“2024 was a year of major organizational changes aimed at activities related to a continued optimization of our operational processes in order to strengthen the company’s adaptability to changing market conditions, the pace of which increased significantly in recent years. Despite the challenging regulatory environment and the decline in demand for coal, we managed to accomplish our assumed production plan of nearly 8 million tons, having increased our year-on-year output by around 12%. Our revenue was nearly PLN 3.7 billion and our EBITDA was close to PLN 1 billion. The ongoing and anticipated changes in Poland’s broadly construed energy market forced our company, after conducting impairment tests on property, plant and equipment, to adjust their value by a total amount of around PLN 2.4 billion. The value of this adjustment exerted a direct impact on our EBIT and net profit, but in no way affected the company’s liquidity position. Without this adjustment, our net profit would have been PLN 471.8 million. We keep improving our operational efficiency and cost flexibility. Our endeavors in this area translate into the company’s greater resilience to external factors. We intend to publish an update of our strategy soon. Our goal remains to run a stable business in a rapidly evolving environment and to prepare for the challenges of the future – both operationally and structurally.”