Siemens Energy is in the red because of wind power

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München The energy technology group Siemens Energy, which recently came into the limelight because of a turbine for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, is struggling with losses. In the third quarter of the 2022 financial year, there was a deficit after taxes of 533 million euros, the company announced on Monday.

In addition to burdens from the restructuring of its Russian business, the ailing wind energy subsidiary Siemens Gamesa is primarily responsible for the minus. Siemens Energy had already made a loss of 307 million euros in the previous year. “Siemens Gamesa’s poor performance has a negative impact on our overall results. We now expect the Siemens Gamesa management to consistently implement the restructuring plan,” said Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch on the publication of the figures on Monday.

For the year as a whole, the group expects a loss after taxes that will match the previous year’s level of minus 560 million euros. This is mainly due to the special effects in connection with the problems in Russia. Without the EUR 200 million special effects, the loss would have been around the same level as the previous year.

Analysts had expected an average of 7.2 billion euros in sales for the Siemens Energy Group, an operating loss of around 200 million euros and a net loss of 330 million euros.

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The subsidiary Siemens Gamesa had already presented bad numbers last week. Sales fell from 2.7 to 2.4 billion euros. The net loss widened to 446 million euros from 314 million euros. As a consequence, Siemens Gamesa lowered its forecast for the full year.

As expected, the new Siemens Gamesa boss Jochen Eickholt, whom the parent company had sent to Spain as a crisis manager, was unable to bring about a quick turnaround. For even better control, Siemens Energy intends to take over the subsidiary soon.

Siemens Energy

Good headlines have been rare at Siemens Energy in recent months.

(Image: REUTERS)

The business with renewable energies was actually seen as a future for the Siemens subsidiary. The demand for wind turbines is increasing worldwide and Siemens Gamesa is one of the top three manufacturers outside of China. The German-Spanish team is even the market leader for offshore wind power.

But there has been a ruinous price war on the wind power market for years. Above all, the switch from fixed state remuneration to free tendering systems, in which only the cheapest gets the contract, has driven the turbine manufacturers into ruinous competition.

The order books at Siemens Gamesa, Vestas, Nordex and Co. are bulging, but the costs far exceed the profits and the margins are turning into the red. Turbine manufacturers cannot capitalize on the global wind boom. At Siemens Gamesa, there are also internal problems that make matters worse.

Confidence in the Siemens Energy boss Bruch

However, the supervisory board of Siemens Energy hopes that the course has at least been set correctly. “I am confident that this will be under control in the next one to two years,” said inspector Jürgen Kerner from IG Metall. It was probably a birth defect that Siemens did not completely own the merged company from the start. “People thought it was enough if you had the majority.”

Despite the losses, Siemens Energy boss Bruch continues to enjoy the trust of the supervisory board. “He sets the right priorities,” said Kerner. According to industry circles, the chairman of the supervisory board, Joe Kaeser, is also fully behind Bruch.

Siemens had spun off the low-margin energy technology as Siemens Energy and floated it on the stock exchange. The Munich-based company still holds a total of 35 percent of the shares in the new group.

Therefore, the problems at Siemens Energy also affect the former parent company. In the third quarter, Siemens wrote off 2.8 billion euros on the stake – and, according to analysts, could have ended up in the red from April to June. The Dax group will present its figures on Thursday.

More: “It’s here and can be delivered”: Chancellor Scholz counters Putin’s turbine bluff

Handelsblatt energy briefing

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