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PRESS RELEASE
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12 November 2010 Interim statement Q3 2010
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Elia confirms financial forecasts for 2010.
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50Hertz incorporated into the Elia Group in line with plans.
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Successful issue by Eurogrid GmbH of a ten-year Eurobond worth €500 million.
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Consolidation of energy exchanges: APX and Belpex join forces; Elia achieves surplus of €9.6 million (60% allocated to shareholders).
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Further progress made in creating an integrated European electricity market and building up an offshore electricity network: extension of market coupling is a success.
Financial forecasts As reported in the 2010 half-yearly results, Elia is unable to give any concrete profit forecasts since the Group's annual result are dependent upon parameters that will either not be known until almost the end of 2010 (such as inflation figures for December 2010) or else can only be calculated at that time (e.g. average Belgian ten-year rate, the beta of Elia shares, total investment from Eurogrid/50Hertz). However, Elia can confirm its plan to keep its dividend at at least the present level throughout 2010. Investment and large-scale maintenance works for 2010 are on schedule to be completed as planned despite several industrial customer-connection projects having been postponed. The budget of €117 million for 2010 is allocated as follows: 45% to finance renewal work, 30% to provide the investment required as a result of rising domestic demand, 12% to fund connection of renewable energy sources and new facilities, 5% to upgrade interconnections and the remaining 8% to bolster other investments (not linked to the grid). Since Elia's activities are regulated, the Group is well positioned to withstand the current economic crisis and is not susceptible to fluctuations in the volume of electricity transmitted. 50Hertz incorporated into the Elia Group as planned Although 50Hertz is considered and financed as a separate entity within the Elia Group, important progress has been made as regards cooperation between 50Hertz and Elia. Between the acquisition on 19 May 2010 and the end of the year, some ten working groups (regulation, market mechanisms, procurement, IT, finance, risk-management, HR, communications, etc.) comprising teams from both TSOs will have joined forces to create synergies in terms of operations and compile best practices drawing on experience within both companies. By early November, many of the goals had already been achieved, which means a positive outlook for the future integrated European electricity market, as well as for tariffs and shareholders. Market coupling developed further: successful launch of its extension to 9 countries One of the tasks of the transmission system operator is to ensure that transmission capacity is available between electricity exchanges in Member States to promote integration of wholesale electricity markets. The electricity exchanges in France, the Netherlands and Belgium have been coupled in this way since November 2006 and such coupling has resulted in significant convergence in wholesale prices in all three countries. On 9 November 2010, market coupling was successfully expanded to the so-called Central West Europe (CWE) Region comprising the Benelux area, Germany and France with a single market price for every hour of 10 November in these 5 countries. Since the German electricity exchange is already coupled with its counterparts in Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) this initiative entails coupling the electricity markets in all nine countries. This will promote greater transparency and a more streamlined
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