Raiffeisen Wasserkraft auctions off household electricity at OneTwoSold

11.05.2001Wien

As of 1 October 2001, Austrians will be able to choose where they purchase their electricity. The newly founded Raiffeisen Wasserkraft Gesellschaft – a 50:50 joint venture between VERBUND and Raiffeisen Ware AG – is already trying out new avenues in marketing its power supply.

From now on, one power supply contract for one household will be auctioned off via Austria's online auctioneer OneTwoSold every week. The power supply amounts to 4,000 kilowatt hours, the power a household consumes in one year. The opening price for each contract will be one Austrian schilling. Thus power for household use is sold by online auction in Austria for the first time.

The package, which totals approx. 8,000 schillings in value, includes the power, the system user fee, the service meter fee and all taxes and will initially be offered for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland. In the weeks to come, offers for households in other provinces will also be for disposal at OneTwoSold. Deliveries will start on October 1, 2001.

Christian Kern, Manager of the VERBUND electricity distribution company: "Due to the fact that the quality of electricity does not change, it is perfectly suitable for sale by auction. OneTwoSold, the leading online auction in Austria, is a particularly innovative sales avenue and is therefore the ideal partner for the market entry."

With the support of OneTwoSold the motto "Clean power at clean prices" is to become familiar to as many Austrians as possible. The goal is to sell hydroelectric power to Austrian households, industrial enterprises and farmers at rates that have never been as favorable before. Michael Heiden, Managing Director of Raiffeisen Wasserkraft promises: "Purchasing electricity from Raiffeisen Wasserkraft will be just as easy and attractive as purchasing electricity via OneTwoSold."

Martin Ohneberg, a Member of the Managing Board of OneTwoSold is very pleased about the cooperation between Raiffeisen Wasserkraft and VERBUND: "The fact that Austria’s largest electricity producer and the cleanest large-scale producer in the EU chose our auction house as a partner underlines our position as one of the leading platforms in eCommerce." In this context Ohneberg referred to the 60,000 people that visit OneTwoSold every day, "which corresponds to approx. 60 % of the shoppers at a Shopping City Süd."

In addition to electricity for household use, Raiffeisen Wasserkraft also offers events around the subject of hydroelectric power that will be auctioned online. To start off, a special treat is offered to daredevils: A bungee jump from the Kölnbrein Dam in the Carinthian Malta region.