VERBUND Expands Business Activities in Germany

08.07.2010Vienna, Munich

VERBUND, Austria's leading power company and one of Europe's largest producers of electricity from environmentally friendly hydropower, is expanding its business activities in Germany and establishing a new branch office in Düsseldorf.

In addition to the redistributors, it is also intended that business clients from industry, commerce, trade and service sectors be convinced by VERBUND's service portfolio first-hand.

Austrian hydropower from VERBUND can already book ten years of success on the German market. The Munich-based VERBUND-Austrian Power Trading Deutschland GmbH has a success story spanning more than ten years: As early as 2004 and following deregulation, it was one of the first power traders in Germany to exceed the 10 TWh mark, especially with public services and their purchasing companies; the green power product "H2Ö" introduced in 2004 is marketed with particular success among redistributors and makes VERBUND the German market leader in the B2B green power trade. VERBUND’s sales volume on the German electricity market comprises some 22,700 GWh. 

It is now intended that a new chapter be written to this success story: With immediate effect, VERBUND-Austrian Power Trading Deutschland GmbH is operating under the new company name VERBUND Trading & Sales Deutschland GmbH (VERBUND Deutschland for short). The task of VERBUND Deutschland is to initiate new relationships with business clients from industry, commerce, trade and service sectors, alongside the hitherto existing ones with segment redistributors. In Germany, the demand for clean power is also rapidly increasing in these target groups; ever more companies want to produce and market their products and services with power from renewable energies. In order to be closer to the market, VERBUND Deutschland is opening a branch office in Düsseldorf – in addition to the company head office in Munich.

VERBUND is Austria’s largest electricity provider and one of the largest producers of hydropower in Europe. Some 90 % of its electricity originates from hydropower. The acquisition of 13 run-of-river power plants on the Bavarian river Inn has made it possible to expand this position even further. With 123 hydropower plants - 110 of which are in Austria and 13 of which are on the Bavarian Inn – providing a total maximum capacity of just under 7,500 megawatts and an average annual generation of around 30 billion kWh, VERBUND produces the environmentally friendly and Technical Inspection Agency (German: TÜV) certified premium H2Ö product from 100 % pure hydropower.  This ecologically valuable and economically sound premium electricity enables companies to make an important contribution to environmental protection.

In addition to the development of business with new business clients, VERBUND Deutschland is also providing support for existing German business clients, who have thus far been supervised by the Vienna-based sales subsidiary VERBUND-Austrian Power Sales GmbH. The head office of VERBUND Deutschland remains in Munich. With immediate effect, Ferdinand Gassner has been appointed as third managing director – alongside the current managing directors Rainer Wellenberg and Helmut Staudinger. Rainer Wellenberg has been named as chairman of the management board.