In 2021, Eesti Energia sold 8.6 terawatt-hours of retail electricity – a quarter more than in 2020. In Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the total sales were over 4.4 terawatt-hours (52%), and in Estonia, nearly 4.2 terawatt-hours (48%).
Natural gas sales increased by 15% year-on-year to 2.4 terawatt-hours, of which a quarter was sales in Estonia and three-quarters in other home markets. Eesti Energia sold 420,000 tons (-7%) of liquid fuels to the international market.
Compared to 2020, the output of power plants in the Baltics and Poland increased by 37 percent to 5.2 terawatt-hours. Renewable energy production increased by 12 percent over the year and reached a new peak of 2.1 terawatt-hours. Renewable electricity accounted for 1.65 terawatt-hours and renewable heat for 0.45 terawatt-hours. Almost two-thirds of the renewable electricity was generated by Enefit Green's wind farms in Estonia and Lithuania. The rest came from combined heat and power plants, solar parks and Enefit Power's thermal power plants.
Andri Avila, Member of the Management Board and Chief Financial Officer at Eesti Energia, noted that the combination of increased sales and production volumes as well as higher energy prices resulted in the historically high sales revenue – EUR 1.31 billion. The sales revenue increased by nearly EUR 480 million (57%) in 2021 compared to the previous year.
Group's EBITDA was EUR 318 million, 49% higher than a year ago. The company's net profit increased almost six-fold over the year and reached EUR 111 million.
“Profitability ensures Eesti Energia's ability to make ambitious investments in order to fully switch to renewable energy production and meet the owner's expectation to pay dividends to the state at the same time,” Avila commented.
The Management Board of Eesti Energia has proposed to the General Meeting to pay EUR 55.7 million in dividends for the financial year of 2021. Enefit Green, as the group's most profitable business unit, plans to pay a dividend of 15.1 cents per share to its tens of thousands of shareholders from its 2021 profit. The final decision on the dividends is made by the General Meeting.
In order to provide customers with a greater amount of affordable renewable electricity, Eesti Energia made three investment decisions in 2021 for the construction of wind farms with a total capacity of 190 megawatts and a cost of over 225 million euros. Enefit Green will build these wind farms in Finland (Tolpanvaara) and Lithuania (Šilalė and Akmenė) in the next few years.
The new wind farms are being created in cooperation with customers who have joined the journey to zero. In 2021, Eesti Energia entered into 9 TWh of long-term fixed-price renewable energy contracts with nearly 1,000 business customers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Already 72,000 households among Eesti Energia's customers were using the Renewable Energy package as of the end of 2021.
The group's investments increased to EUR 252 million (+35%) in 2021. The largest part of this – EUR 99.5 million – were investments related to the power network, and as a result, the security of supply of almost 70,000 customers improved among other things. Elektrilevi added 172 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity to the network from more than 4,200 producers during the year.
Eesti Energia invested 42 million euros in renewable energy development projects and 50 million euros in the construction of the Enefit 280 plant for the transition to a chemical industry.
As of the end of 2021, the group's net debt was almost 759 million euros, decreasing by 89 million (-10%) over the year. Its credit rating at the investment-grade level remained unchanged over the year.
The taxes paid by Eesti Energia in 2021 for its all home markets totalled EUR 205 million, including EUR 143 million in Estonia. In addition, Eesti Energia will transfer 4.9 million tons of CO2 quota to the state for 2021, the total market price of which is currently nearly 425 million euros.