E.ON SE

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome to our virtual press conference for the first half year of EON SE. I'm delighted to welcome you virtually, the representatives of the media who are joining us via Teams, and our viewers on the live stream. Our CEO, Leonhard Birnbaum, is with us, and Nadia Jakobi, our CSO. A warm welcome to both of you. In the 30 minutes ahead of us we will give you an overview of the business development of E.ON in the first six months. Afterwards we will have the opportunity to ask questions to Mr. Birnbaum and Nadia Jakobi.

Members of the press, ladies and gentlemen, good morning from me. I would like to start with a topic that's on many people's minds right now the never-ending war in Ukraine and the still unresolved conflict in the Middle East both have dramatically brought energy into the spotlight again the good news is despite all the bad news in Europe companies and Europe are European governments and operators critical infrastructure are much more prepared than ever they have learned from the energy crisis in 2022 but it's also clear that Europe and Germany in particular need to further strengthen their energy supply the volatility And that brings me to E.ON's business Aon again delivered financially in the first half of 2026. Adjusted Group EBITDA of €5.4 billion and Adjusted Group Net Income of €1.9 billion puts us fully on track to meet our 2026 guidance. The tempo on our investments remained high as well. We invested €3 billion in the first six months alone in networks, in customer solutions, and in the future of advanced European energy system. The details on all of these numbers will be presented to you by Nadia in a moment. It is our employees that make these results possible. They move the energy transition forward day after day. They have delivered operationally and for that I would like to thank them. I also want to acknowledge that many of them do this in environments that involve inherent risks, so electricity and infrastructure that is dangerous. and that is precisely where it matters that our employees return home safe and sound every day and I'm therefore deeply saddened to share with you that two fatal workplace accidents occurred last week One in Germany and one in Turkey. My deepest sympathies go out to the families and the loved ones of the deceased employees and also to their colleagues. Our goal remains clear. That is totally unacceptable. Our vision is Vision Zero. We don't want any workplace accidents. We want to make sure that all of our employees return home safe and sound every day. Today the energy transition can't just focus on debating policy targets and explaining renewables. We need a systemic shift. and that's exactly where things stand right now. In Germany we added more than 130,000 grid connections in Germany and more than 5 gigawatts of additional renewables capacity were connected to our networks. That equals to more than 1,000 state-of-the-art turbines. E.ON now integrates and administers more renewable capacity than all other network operators in Germany put together. Large-scale battery storage continues to boom as well. Beyond battery systems already connected, E.ON has issued approvals for more than 26 gigawatts of new capacity. To put this in perspective, that's more than a quarter of Germany's entire peak load. Requests for data center connections are growing at a similar rapid pace. We have already approved more than 13 gigawatts. of New Connections so we're living in a completely different world today in the past the energy systems as you know was a one-way street from big power plants to consumers today we have smart homes electric mobility and over half of Germany's electricity comes from renewables these millions of assets don't just need to be securely integrated and controlled but also build also the current scale of new batteries and data center connections wouldn't have been imaginable just a few years ago. In this challenging and highly complex environment, E.ON ensures that the system stays stable and energy reliably reaches our customers. and we're not just enabling the energy transition but also the next steps in digitalization and artificial intelligence. We are Germany's leading network operator in rolling out smart meters and we're doing everything we can to provide you connections even faster, more efficiently and smarter while innovations and new business solutions are enabling us to make the best possible use of limited grid capacity. I'll illustrate this with three examples. Our Introductional Flexible Connection Agreement, so-called FCAs, provides a key tool for better integrating battery storage systems into our networks. That enables us to connect these systems faster while making better use of existing grid capacities. Together with our partner EcoStore, we are testing a uniform standard for all E.ON network operators. Second, many of our new approaches enable us to continue to optimize how we approve and install network connections swiftly and efficiently. These include projects by our regional subsidiaries such as the feed-in sockets which thanks to its genuine added value is now included in the grid package under the name Einspeisen Netz. Some of our regional Companies are also working on a new pilot plan for even more efficiently prioritising grid capacity for connection requests with high load requirements. More details about this will be shared over the coming days. Third, our digital twin technology from Inverio enables us to digitally model energy flows and thus make grid planning more precise, identify capacity faster and provide connections more efficiently. This process recently received the Reuters Energy Industry Award 26 in New York. All of this demonstrates that E.ON isn't just expanding the power grid, which is currently reaching its limits in Germany, we are also making sure new energy works better, swiftly, efficiently and digitally. That is exactly what we are doing with our solutions in the retail business as well. With the announced acquisitions of the energy provider OVO in the UK we are strengthening our position in one of our most important markets and offering our customers an even broader portfolio of solutions. We are also helping our business customers reduce their energy costs and make their energy supply more autonomous even in tough economic times and in Germany we are offering a combined package for solar and battery for larger facilities Thank you very much. In our energy infrastructure solution business we installed highly efficient energy recovery system at an Imazes production facility in Belgium. This system peaks output is 29 MW which is enough to power the entire site and surplus electricity is fed into the grid. and we'll meet the needs of around 40,000 households. Projects like these demonstrate that E.ON is shaping the second half of the energy transition. We're enabling our customers to tap into the potential of electrification and that's why we welcome the EU's massive push for electrification. Increased electrification of heating, transport and industrial processes will correspondingly reduce Europe's dependence on fossil fuel imports. Right now, though, Europe still needs gas, especially for heating. Germany's gas storage facilities are currently 49% full, which is significantly lower than the EU average. In a tense geopolitical environment, Germany can't rely on neighbouring countries and energy supplies. It needs to take action to ensure that the more than 20 million households that still rely on natural gas have a secure supply this winter. Volatility and geopolitically induced price swings on commodity trading markets are here to stay. We are doing everything we can to cushion our customers from price spikes on wholesale markets. Our long-term procurement strategy will enable us to keep power and gas prices in our largest market, Germany, stable this year for all existing customers and those on default supply contracts. And in our second largest retail market, the United Kingdom, we are offering customers the pledge tariff which guarantees savings relative to the government-set price cap. All of this underscores E.ON's commitment to being a reliable partner for our customers also in turbulent times. We back up this commitment with our investment program. E.ON plans to invest 48 billion euros between 2026 and 2030 of which about 40 billion is allocated to our energy networks business. This is one of Europe's largest private infrastructure programs contributing to value creation and employment in economically challenging times. It is also essential for the success of the energy transition and the transformation of the energy system. Today, there is more competition for capital than ever. A key factor for future investments is therefore the upcoming determination of Germany's regulatory cost of capital rates for power and gas networks, which must adequately reflect the real financing costs. The task is to get the whole package right. Full planning certainty for the next regulatory package is only achieved once all of the parameters are finalised. These parameters include the rate on return, the efficiency benchmark and the OPEX adjustment factor. The totality of these regulations will determine whether, amid global competition, Germany will be an attractive market for private infrastructure capital over the long term. The message is simple. Anyone who expects significant private investment in networks in the future must now establish the regulatory framework to make that possible. That's why we have unambiguously made our announced investments in Germany contingent on economically viable regulation. The sooner we get comprehensive clarity on the parameters for the fifth regulatory period for power, the sooner we can sharpen our investment planning for 2029 onwards. The first half of the energy transition was about expanding renewables. The second half is primarily about network infrastructure, system integration and efficiency. The policy framework for the energy transition therefore needs to be realigned. This applies first and foremost at the European level. We fundamentally welcome the direction of the planned EU grids package. It recognises networks as backbone of the energy transition and addresses key challenges in planning, financing and permitting. There also needs to be greater legal certainty for faster network connections as well and where grid capacity is scarce there need to be provisions for transparent and legally binding prioritisation mechanisms. Equally important are visible achievements in reducing bureaucracy for larger companies like E.ON. If Europe wants the energy transition to progress at maximum speed, it needs to set the lowest possible bureaucratic hurdles, reporting requirements, documentation obligations and regulatory rules. like the act on corporate due diligence obligation in supply chains or the paid transparency directive or the EU taxonomy and I could give much more examples can't allow to stand in the way of transformation especially when these rules offer actually little benefit and do not help us in our day-to-day work at all and Germany needs to be faster too Together with the energy industry are to have preferable progress on the core issues around network connections to be much faster. After all, the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy's grid package has been around since the start of the year and contains specific and solid proposals to enhance system cost efficiency. That's why the Federal Cabinet finally agreed on the grid's package in 8 July, a package aimed at reducing German consumers' exposure to high energy system costs, which was an important step. The key is to shift away from the first come first serve approach to legally binding prioritization of bottlenecks. Not the one who puts the application in first gets first serve, but only those who really want to connect to the system. Equally important are locational signals to propel the renewables expansion. System costs currently remain high because generating capacity is being built in regions that already have great bottlenecks. Going forward, Germany needs effective signals to counteract this. The Redispatch Proviso is a sustainable tool for this. but its modalities can't be so lax that it becomes a mere paper tiger. Consequently, the grids package needs to be adjusted in part by Parliament without delay and it too needs to be as simple and straightforward as possible and also actually reduce system costs. We don't need even more well-intentioned detailed regulations and exceptions that only make things more complex and expensive. In July, the Coalition Committee announced a distribution credits package as well. This again underscores the urgency of faster network connections, especially for industry. It also highlighted a key factor for increasing speed, faster permitting processes. This will require less bureaucracy and, again, faster legal review. Germany can move fast. We saw that with the energy expansion grid. Rapid expansion is now needed as a new normal standard. The distribution grid package is therefore generally the step in the right direction. But it's only the second step. The grids package needs to get across the finishing line first because it's not ambitions and aspirations that count for the second half of the energy system but what happens on the field is what counts and that's precisely where ION comes in that's where precisely we want to use our role as playmaker to shape the game and that's precisely where again we will be continuing and with that I hand over to Nadia

Thank you, Leo. A warm welcome from me too, ladies and gentlemen. Leo just outlined where we are standing in the energy transition and how we continue to deliver operationally. The demand for grid connections is rising. We are encountering more storage systems, more data centers and more electrical applications. In short, the energy system is becoming bigger, more complex and more digital. I would now like to turn to our financial figures and discuss how earnings and investments developed across our business divisions. The top line message is that E.ON had a successful first half of 2026. We increased our earnings year over year, we continue to make massive investments, and we reaffirming our full year guidance. This is not a given in the current environment. Economic and geopolitical conditions remain challenging. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to cause volatility in wholesale electricity markets At the same time, we see a very clear structural trend in our markets Demand for energy infrastructure continues to grow. Customers want to electrify. Industrial enterprises are looking for solutions for a more efficient and climate-friendly energy supply, and the grids are a critical enabler of this development. E.ON is well positioned to play exactly this role. This is also reflected in our earnings figures. In the first half of 2026, Adjusted Group EBITDA increased by 1% to 5.4 billion euros, which was in line with our expectations. Adjusted Group Net Income rose by 5% to 1.9 billion euros. After the first six months, we are therefore fully on track to achieve our full-year targets. For 2026, we continue to expect adjusted group EBITDA in the range of 9.4 to 9.6 billion euros and adjusted group net income of 2.7 to 2.9 billion euros. This corresponds to adjusted earnings per share of 1.03 to 1.11 euros. Let me now turn to our individual business divisions. Starting with energy networks, adjusted EBITDA increased slightly year over year to more than 3.8 billion euros. The business continued to benefit from substantial investments in the expansion and modernization of energy networks. Positive contributions came both from Germany and other European markets, especially in Central and Southeastern Europe. In Germany, the further expansion of our smart meter business also supported earnings performance, whereas expenditures for sustainable growth measures as well as the deconsolidation of the NEW Group had an adverse effect. Next is Energy Infrastructure Solutions. The business division delivered a strong performance in the first half of the year. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 19% year-over-year to around 390 million euros. The main driver was the industrial customer business in Germany where new growth projects were brought into operation. In addition, the pass-through of higher procurement costs from prior years had a positive effect on earnings. I will now turn to energy retail. Energy retail also had a successful first half of the year. As expected, adjusted EBITDA of 1.2 billion euros was slightly below the prior year level. This development mainly reflects structural effects in Germany, including the deconsolidation of the NEW Group. In contrast, process optimizations in customer management processes had a positive impact. In the United Kingdom, positive effects in the residential customer business and in connection with energy efficiency measures more than offset the earnings declines resulting from the continued roll-off of legacy contracts with industrial and commercial customers. Let me now turn to our investments. In the first half of 2026, we invested a total of €3 billion, and we stand by our plan to invest a total of about €8.7 billion for the full year. In energy networks, investments amounted to roughly €2.3 billion in the first six months of the year. They went primarily towards new grid connections and the expansion of network infrastructure. This figure is lower than in the prior year period and the decline is mainly attributable to Germany, where weather conditions caused delays in the first quarter and some projects were temporarily postponed. These investments will be caught up over the course of the year. At the same time, energy networks increased its investments in the first six months in several European countries, especially in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. Investment needs are not limited to a single market. They arise across Europe. In energy infrastructure solutions, we invested about €360 million, slightly above the prior year level. These investments focused on energy infrastructure for industrial customers, cities and municipalities, supporting projects that make energy supply more efficient, climate-friendly and resilient. In energy retail, investments amounted to around €240 million, also slightly exceeding the prior year level. Thank you very much. Thank you. At the same time, we are investing in charging infrastructure and new customer solutions. This not only helps to integrate renewables more effectively into the system, it also supports further growth driven by the increasing electrification of transport, heating and industry, and it enables our customers to actively participate in and benefit from the energy transition. To continue to invest at this scale, we need a reliable and appropriate framework. Long-term infrastructure investments require planning certainty. Where regulation supports investment and innovation, we can continue the expansion of energy infrastructure and meet the growing demand for electrification. I'll conclude with a summary. First, E.ON delivered in the first half of 2026. Adjusted Group EBITDA and Adjusted Group Net Income both increased year over year and our business divisions are performing as planned. Second, we continue to invest in the infrastructure needed for the second half of the energy transition provided that the regulatory framework is right. And third, we confirm our guidance for the full year of 2026 as well as our outlook through 2030. Overall, we remain firmly on track operationally and financially. Demand for energy infrastructure continues to grow across Europe and through our investments we are creating the foundation needed to support this growth while advancing the energy transition. Thank you. Thank you very much Nadia and Leo for your presentations. I would like to open the Q&A session and please raise your virtual hand. First questions have already come in. It would be nice if you could show your camera. If you do not want to be seen in the live chat, then switch off your camera, but as mentioned, we would be delighted to see you.