City-owned Wien Energie urgently needs money to meet obligations on the electricity exchange. Time is of the essence, two billion are needed by Tuesday noon.
Wien. It was the bang of the electricity crisis summit convened at short notice in the Chancellery on Sunday evening: Wien Energie needs billions of euros in liquidity in order to be able to deposit security deposits for transactions that have already been carried out on the electricity exchange. Minister of Finance Magnus Brunner saw the company in a “financial emergency”, which is why there were further negotiations between Wien Energie, the Ministry of Finance, the financial prosecutor and representatives of the city on Monday, in which the specific contracts for the financial aid from the federal government were to be negotiated. But what is it actually about?
1 How much money does Wien Energie need and what is it needed for?
In a letter from the Vienna City Council Peter Hanke sent to the Ministry of Finance on Monday and which is available to the “Presse”, the latter is requesting a credit line of six billion euros, which the federal government is to grant to the city so that the money can be passed on to Wien Energie. Two billion of these would be needed by no later than Tuesday noon. The money is needed to make margin payments (security deposits) for energy trading transactions. An abrupt price increase on the electricity exchanges at the end of the previous week triggered a sudden margin payment of 1.75 billion euros for Monday, August 29. This payment can still be covered with the support of the City of Vienna, “however, further expected financial requirements require the support of the Federal Financing Agency,” says Hanke. In the course of the afternoon, Hanke explained that the financial requirement could rise to up to ten billion euros. In the evening, Hanke said, with reference to the easing on the electricity exchange on Monday, that two billion were no longer needed for Tuesday, but that there should even be a three-digit billion amount for Wien Energie. However, it is to be expected that the situation could worsen again in the coming days.