Controversy over Enea's purchase of wind farms. Did the giant overpay?

• In April 2025, Enea finalized the purchase of a wind farm with a capacity of 83.2 MW located in the Pelplin commune (Pomeranian Voivodeship). The value of the transaction amounted to over PLN 740 million.
• In March 2025, Enea acquired six wind farms with a total capacity of 83.5 MW, located in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Together with the farms, a 25 MW photovoltaic farm project was acquired. The value of the transaction will amount to PLN 914 million.
• The Enea Group's net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company in the first quarter of 2025 amounted to PLN 1.05 billion.

- The year 2025 is the acceleration of the transformation of the Enea Group . In 2024, we presented a strategy that speaks of the level of investments in the perspective of 10 years in the amount of PLN 107 billion. Part of these investments, PLN 67 billion, are investment projects, and PLN 40 billion is an ambition. And with such ambitions we enter the year 2025 - says Marek Lelątko, member of the board of the Enea Group for finance, who participated in the 17th European Economic Congress .

Large investments in energy distribution and the renewable energy sector

In December 2024, Enea presented its development strategy until 2035. During this period, Enea intends to allocate nearly PLN 107.5 billion to implement the strategy.

- One of our largest investment areas will be distribution . There is a big acceleration there resulting from, among other things, the requirements of the energy transformation in Poland. A big change is the increase in expenditures on the renewable energy sector, we have already announced two large acquisitions. We are planning another acquisition, with which we will return in a few months. Other investments in renewable energy are the completion of our own projects - adds Marek Lelątko.

In addition, in the generation segment, Enea plans to green one of the units at the Połaniec Power Plant .

In April 2025, Enea Nowa Energia, a company from the Enea Group, finalized the purchase of a wind farm with a capacity of 83.2 MW located in the Pelplin commune (Pomeranian Voivodeship) from Greenvolt Power. The project includes 16 wind turbines with a capacity of 5.2 MW each and a GPZ station. The value of the transaction amounts to over PLN 740 million.

In March 2025, Enea Nowa Energia acquired six wind farms with a total capacity of 83.5 MW from European Energy, located in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Along with the wind farms, as part of the transaction, Enea will also take over a 25 MW photovoltaic farm project at the "ready to build" stage. The value of the transaction will amount to a maximum of PLN 914 million.

Enea is building its third leg: renewable energy

The purchase prices of the wind farms by Enea raised a lot of controversy , with opinions emerging that Enea paid too much for them.

- We always evaluate the efficiency of each investment, and especially such significant investments as these two. These investments meet the efficiency criteria in our group, we look at the IRR (internal rate of return) of the projects, we look at the costs of capital and compare the IRR with this cost. We assessed that these investments are profitable for us . On the other hand, we check the LCOE (average cost of generating electricity during the entire operation of the installation) of the projects, i.e. at what price we can generate energy in these sources and whether we are able to sell this energy - replies Marek Lelątko.

He points out that the Enea Group has so far stood on two legs: the distribution leg and conventional energy. Now Enea must enter renewable energy segments, such as wind energy and photovoltaics, in the near future these will also be energy storage.

- We need to transform our energy production area. These investments were a chance for us to strongly enter the wind energy segment, and we lack wind in our portfolio. We strive to ensure that the production portfolio is balanced and to be able to offer our customers products based on this portfolio of renewable energy sources, also including wind - explains Marek Lelątko.

He emphasizes that the market often looks at the profitability of wind projects in such a way that it divides the financial outlays by the power of wind farms.

- These farms are different, they are in different locations, have different wind conditions, different turbines at different heights. We look at how much energy we can sell for this Capex . From our perspective, these two projects have very similar efficiency, looking at IRR, and looking at Capex per MW of installed capacity, they are assessed differently. One better, the other a bit worse - emphasizes Marek Lelątko.

Over PLN 1 billion in profit in the first quarter of 2025

Enea has presented preliminary results for the first quarter of 2025. They show that the Enea Group's net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company in the first quarter of 2025 amounted to PLN 1.05 billion. The Enea Group's revenues in the first quarter of 2025 reached PLN 7.59 billion, and EBITDA profit was PLN 1.94 billion.

- We are ambitiously fighting for the 2025 result. In previous years, sales were subject to strong regulation, which may surprise us more positively in 2025. I think that there will continue to be energy buy-backs (buy-backs of energy from TGE while suspending the operation of its coal-fired power plants), there will continue to be a difference in forwards regarding securing euro for the purchase of CO2 emission allowances. We will steadily build the result in the distribution area. It will be difficult to repeat certain things from the previous two years, but we are ambitiously fighting to maintain these results, so that we have money for development and investments - sums up Marek Lelątko.