Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to today's Annual Results Press Conference of E. ON SE. Because of this exceptional situation, it is only a virtual press conference as it has been the situation in many other companies. If you would like to follow the webcast, please switch your conference call to mute and vice versa. At this juncture, I would like to introduce myself as the new Head of Communications and Political Affairs of E.
ON SE. And I hope that we will have the opportunity to meet personally later, that is as soon as possible because unfortunately this is not able this is not possible today. With us here today is the CEO of E. ON S. E, Johannes Thijsien and the CFO, Marc Spieker.
And of course, you would like to hear our view of the potential consequences of the coronavirus on our business. And that's why our press conference will start with some clear statements on our responsibility as an energy utility for the company in this current situation. And then we will explain the potential repercussions on our business and financial situation. Then Johannes Teyssen is going to give an overview of the strategic further development of the company and the further integration of innogy. Afterwards, Mark Spieker will provide you with the most important KPIs and will explain the economic development of the fiscal year and the financial outlook for the next few years.
Then you will have the opportunity to ask your questions. And I would like to pass the floor to Johannes Thijsien.
Unang, Lars. Thank you, Lars. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, from Essen. The coronavirus pandemic is one of the greatest challenge our society had faced in many decades. We must all now join together as a community, act responsibly and set aside individual interests during this time.
Being Germany's largest investor owned energy company gives E. ON a great deal of responsibility towards the general public and the economy in this special situation. We also feel strong sense of responsibility for our more than 75,000 employees and their families. Therefore, we swiftly put in place protective measures like travel bans and flexible work arrangements. And whenever necessary, we are adjusting these arrangements and measures while at the same time ensuring stable business continuity.
Many governments are anxious across Europe to ensure that energy infrastructure remains stable in any case, particularly during the challenging weeks that lie ahead. In numerous background discussions, I've assured government officials that they continue to be able to rely on E. ON and, of course, innogy as well. Despite the current challenging situation, we will without question keep our business operations on track so that our customers continue to receive a reliable supply of power and gas and so that networks remain stable. We will achieve this through a mix of different operating scenarios.
They include work on-site and in the field, flexible work arrangements, virtual meetings, and we are adapting our work conditions to comply with evolving government regulations in the various countries in order to safeguard public health and our employees. Not all of us can work from home these days. We have around 14,000 employees in critical functions. They are working around the clock at our facilities and in the network areas locally in our company's service territories to ensure that the power and the heat stays on in hospitals, retirement homes, businesses and households. Our technicians who are working outdoors in our energy networks and at our customers' premises to fix faults and ensure the continued operation of critical infrastructure.
They are doing a fantastic job. So too are the employees in our network control centers in Germany and in neighboring countries. They're working 20 fourseven to make sure the energy supply remains stable and is adept to the changed circumstances to minimize risks to our customers and employees, Employees in critical functions are even willing now to live and work under dormitory I like to take this opportunity to thank them. But also in the call in service center, 1,000 are working to be accessible to customers. Needless to say, we've put in place the necessary social distancing and hygiene measures to protect all these colleagues.
Numerous IT specialists across our organization are working tirelessly to keep our systems operational and enable us under these altered conditions to have thousands of our employees work from home as well. I'd like to express our heartfelt thanks to all of these colleagues. I'd also like to make a special mention of our people in Italy. Their entire country is particularly heart hit by the pandemic. For many weeks now, our colleagues at E.
ON Italy have been working under very difficult conditions, particularly in the northern regions. I'd like to take this opportunity to say a special thanks to these employees, and we send them best wishes and lots of positive energy. The takeover and integration of energy have made E. ON the biggest operator of the critical infrastructure, which is so important for society in this time. That's our energy networks and the energy system.
It's the backbone of contemporary society and crucial for climate friendly future. We are very aware that this gives us social responsibilities towards our customers and towards the general public. That's why we've joined other utilities to support the German Energy Association's pledge until further notice not to disconnect financially vulnerable customers. What does this societal and social crisis mean for the economy general and for E. ON in particular?
Let me state very clearly, no sector, no single company in Europe will be able to shield itself from the impact of the spread of the coronavirus. If many people die, if hospitals across Europe are overwhelmed, if numerous small and large companies and entire industries reduce their service or even close down entirely, this will necessarily affect each and every company. It's still early to quantify the financial repercussions. What can all be done is check the vulnerability of a variety of business models in this kind of crisis. The implications of an economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus will be reflected in E.
ON's current year results. But a comparison of E. ON with other sectors or with the likes links of the value chain, we are based on a very robust situation. And that's because we provide an essential service to our people, which must be upheld under all consequences under all conditions. Consequency, lawmakers and regulators in Brussels and in Europe have a vested interest in our ability to remain functional and operational in bad times as well as good in our ability, even in a crisis, to continue to invest in the future beyond the crisis and to lay the foundation for recovery.
Our high degree resilience is owed to the chosen business model as a provider of essential services and to our enduring and unique value proposition. That's good and we are grateful for that and we pledge to be a reliable provider of essential services, especially in these challenging times. At the same time, I must also point out that the crisis will impact our results in the current financial year. The sudden drop in sales volumes will at least temporarily have an adverse impact on our networks' earnings strength, but there will be countervailing effects according to regulation security as labor markets constraints will hamper our ability to deliver some of our growth projects on schedule. Sometimes, there's a lack of contractors and in sales, we have adapted to the reduced customer demand and certain production assets won't be able to sell output to their usual markets while our industrial partners' production remains shut down.
At the same time, we are of course also adjusting very quickly our expenditures to the new environment. We've secured our financing at an early stage and also refinanced maturing bonds at a very attractive term in the 1st 2 months of this year. From today's perspective, it looks like foresight, but to be honest, it also involved some luck. No one can reliably predict today how deep and how protracted and how difficult this crisis will be. We don't intend to present any new scenarios here either, flexibility, the willingness to adapt and the determination to fight together with our customers, we believe are the best recipe.
E. ON can and will deal with this shutdown better than most other energy companies and most other sectors of the economy. And this is because we completed our company's strategic transformation early and set the course for a sustainable future. Let's come to the core of this year's annual results press conference. It doesn't just look back on the last year, but as Marc Spieker will say later, we will also look ahead.
Roughly 5 years after of diligent work to transform E. ON, we have made a step forward. It began in 2014 with the decision to spin off our conventional generation business as Uniper and was completed by the acquisition of innogy and the sale of our renewables operations to RWE. A lot of detailed work still needs to be done with the integration of innogy, but the big picture is in place. Following 2 years of hard work to acquire and integrate innogy, Mark Smiek and I are pleased today to present the new E.
ON to you also in numbers. In particularly uncertain times like these, we will reaffirm our conviction that precisely this business model is the right one and is based on the right strategic course. Going forward, customer oriented energy infrastructure will be the centerpiece of of the new A. ON. What do we mean by that?
The centerpiece of the new A. ON will be our regulated networks business, distributed infrastructure from cabling in house to the high voltage network at 110 kilowatts. It's the distributed infrastructure activities in City Energy, where we support local communities and local borrowers and of course our B2B solutions. This setup makes sustainability the key driver of our entire business model. The new energy world is irrevocably defined by decarbonization, and that means, 1st and foremost, green electrification.
This will create substantial long term opportunities and even unique opportunities for E. ON. Our distribution networks locally in the regions are the Internet of Europe's energy transformation, and these networks connect all sectors, industry, houses, people, businesses with each other. And they are the place where renewable electricity can be used, can be refined in heating, in the transport sector, in industrial production. It's just not green electronics, green electricity, green transport, green and highly efficient heating and cooling solutions, intelligently networked households and businesses.
Without energy networks and without distributed energy infrastructure, Europe won't realize its vision of becoming a climate neutral continent. The operation of this infrastructure, its expansion, its modernization and digitization is the centerpiece of a climate neutral continent. Demand for green power according to many experts and also according to our expectations will almost double over the next decades. At the same time, energy demand as a whole based on fossil fuels, will decline. Everything will be more efficient, but will be more electrical as well.
In order to meet this increasing demand, we require massive expansion of the energy infrastructure. One example, the study published by DENA, the German Energy Agency, estimated a year before last that €150,000,000,000 will have to be invested in distribution networks until 2,050. That's €5,000,000,000 annually in this country. We are spending €2,000,000,000 per year. So, in this way, we are making a pivotal contribution to Europe's energy transition and to the success of the Green Deal.
We are all facing, even after corona and during corona, the challenge of climate change together. It's not about demanding things from other. You have to deliver yourself. And therefore, we have set ambitious new targets which we communicate today. The main focus isn't on our own annual carbon emissions, which are and you can see this on the Internet with the compared with the other energy companies, they are at a comparatively low, in absolute terms, 12,000,000 metric tons per year.
A company of this size with so many customers, only 12,000,000 companies. If we compare this footprint with that of other energy suppliers, then we are walking on tiptoes. But nonetheless, we've set ambitious targets for addressing the emissions that we can influence directly. We intend to reduce our carbon footprint by 75% in this decade. And in the next decade until 2,040, we want to become carbon neutral in everything we do.
By 2,050, we intend to be climate neutral for more than 50,000,000 of our customers and to provide them exclusively with clean energy. And this indirect footprint, which depends on our suppliers, not us, is to be halved. And this aligns us with the goal of the European Commission's Green Deal to make Europe a climate neutral continent by mid century. The most important thing now is to have a binding framework for urgently needed investment to expand energy infrastructure and for effective carbon pricing. The objective of all this is to make green electricity the new primary energy source across all sectors.
If Europe invests decisively in green energy infrastructure, then this will be achieved. But for us, this is about more than reducing our emissions. We see ourselves as the enabler of Europe's sustainable future. Together with our business partners and customers, we whom we build networks with and operate plants and deliver solutions, we've successfully avoided around 100,000,000 metric tons of carbon emissions in 2019 alone. Our annual carbon avoidance in society is therefore 8x higher than our own emissions.
We avoid emissions by connecting new renewable capacity to our networks and transporting it into its transporting its output efficiently and by partnering with customers to deliver cogeneration and also our energy efficiency solutions, which we develop together with customers. For us, it's all about connecting as many generating units as possible, but to connect all solar farms efficiently as possible and in that way do a lot more than developing and operating individual plants. Ultimately, it's therefore about enabling clean industrial energy production, accelerating e mobility and making heating and cooling of public and private buildings much more climate friendly. Let me give you a few numbers. Today, 20% of all Europe's renewable energy is connected to us to an E.
ON distribution network. Considering that we only have electricity distribution networks in 7 European countries, our relative proportion is actually much higher in the countries where we operate, and that's not clear to everyone. Sustainably and that should never be forgoat is about more than just reducing carbon emissions. The highest standards for corporate social responsibility and good corporate governments guide our actions. Commitment to human rights, to health and safety and diversity and the aims of the United Nations are essential for us.
E. ON's sharp sustainability profile is reflected in its outstanding sustainability rankings as well. We have uploaded information on this on the Internet today. For several years now, we've had a sustainability council that advises the management board on sustainable issues. In addition, the supervisory board has established an innovation and sustainability committee to proactively monitor our sustainability performance, embedding a sustainability mindset into all our decision making processes is what creates value for E.
ON and for our stakeholders. This successful placement of several green bonds at very favorable terms is evidence that our investors appreciate our positioning as well. Our decisions and actions are also guided by the 3 megatrends that will affect the energy transition in the long term. As I said, electrification, but also distributed solutions and digitization. Decarbonization will involve the comprehensive electrification of various aspects of our lives over many decades to come.
This means that although total energy consumption must be reduced, electricity supply and consumption will increase, and we've provided numbers on that in our chance. The demand for new solutions that will facilitate the supply of green power will remain strong for decades. These trends call for highly agile and capable companies like E. ON. A few examples, companies like Tesla are aware of this.
Tesla has hired us to design the right energy solution for its new European giga Berlin. They've given us 18 months, which is quite ambitious, but we will deliver despite corona. Another example of companies' trust in us is the contract we were awarded to provide the energy supply for the new big data centers being built outside Frankfurt. Frankfurt is one of the hotspots for all of the data centers, data networks of the continent. And they will all of these data centers will require a lot of already have requests for connections in the books for the next 7 years.
Electrification must be connected to energy efficiency and both will further stimulate our business. Only competent partners like Aeron with a Trident tested relationship to customers can cope with the complexity of the new energy world and help the customers. The energy world has to be more decentralized and interconnected. The only way to switch to the new future is optimize things locally. Another example of this decentralized setup is that 90% of our plants feed into the local distribution networks, not the high voltage transmission networks, it's distributed networks.
Our German network operator in Sysmec Holsturajen has an eco power share of over 2 50%. That means 2.5x more renewable power is fed into its system than it delivers to customers. Beyond's average renewables ratio is currently over 80%. This by far exceeds the federal government's targets. So this is much higher than the targets of the German government, and this shows that the energy transition is based in the regions, not in the major cities, and we are often the partners there.
Of course, 100% of all electric vehicle charging points are also connected to the distribution systems as our electric heating systems. Distributed solutions will ultimately empower our customers and will give them a much more proactive role in tomorrow's energy system. And to play this role, they require digital solutions and interfaces. Otherwise, no one, no system can deal with the new complexity. E.
ON is well positioned for this with decades of experience, and we are developing that for new applications. The big trends will accompany us for decades to come, and they will determine our midterm investment planning. And we can tell our investors today that roughly 90% of all investments will be both.
These local units include embedded heating and cooling units and the grids and are connected to as well as the renewable powered and high efficiency gas fired embedded generating units that we install for customers. All this enhances our customers' energy efficiency and unlocks their optimization potential. Our most important markets for this are Germany, Sweden, Poland, Italy and the United Kingdom. These embedded generating units are generally accompanied by long term supply and service agreements with cities, communities and companies that generate stable and reliable earnings over the long term. About 10% of our investments are earmarked for our unregulated sales activities.
Here, our medium term focus is on making the investments necessary to upgrade our IT architecture, while also carefully expanding our service businesses that have a higher proportion of recurring income streams. The new E. ON after the innogy acquisition has a large share of regulated businesses that is precisely 80%. The new E. ON will become more predictable, more resilient and more robust.
We expect our regulated power asset base to increase by 3% to 5% annually through to 2022 and to continue to increase after that. Implementing the European Green Deal will require significantly more investments in green electrification across all sectors, including e mobility, residential and industry. As I said before, we're going to focus on infrastructure, in particular, in the electricity grid and the associated local infrastructure, But also, our base in the gas business, €6,000,000,000 will be stable in the future. Gas as a transition technology to hydrogen will play a key role for many years to come. In addition, we believe the formation of green regional hydrogen clusters, they will create long term growth opportunities.
We're gradually preparing our gas networks for their new future and are testing in pilot projects with customers like Satskita AG their ability to operate early on with a large admixture of green gas, one of the projects also involves the European Commission. For the years ahead, we have stable regulatory a stable regulatory environment. The next regulatory period for power networks in Germany and Sweden doesn't begin until 2024, and the network business of Germany is founded on long term concessions with municipalities that are among E. ON's core customers and partners. E.
ON currently has more than 9,000 concessions. And in the recent years, we've prevailed against the competition to renew 95% of those partnerships. Our high voltage networks, which are important for the energy transition and for crucial new connections for large industrial customers and renewables account for 1 third of the investment base of our networks in Germany. Moreover, they're not awarded through concessions and therefore represent an even more stable foundation for long term development. We're many communities infrastructure partner of choice for climate friendlier a climate friendlier future.
We are currently supplying 50,000,000 households reliably with electricity, heat and gas. In the future, we want to become more efficient and more performant. I talked about the modernization of the IT infrastructure. And for this purpose, our services are going to be migrated to cloud based, more modern IT platforms. All German customers will be transferred to this new platform eventually.
It will become the home of all B2C activities in Germany. And this already applies to 500,000 customers today, and this will be progressed gradually. We call this project digital attacker, but basically, it's the digital enabler for a better customer experience, more flexibility, new products and the aim is to adjust and adapt new products more quickly. And our strategy for the U. K.
Is quite similar. We teamed up with a partner there to be quicker because after the integration of Npower, we had to deliver quickly. 2 days ago, we announced that we have a solution incorporating cutting edge technology for our U. K. Customers.
Our agreement with Kraken Technology gives us an even better and more permanent solution for the plan we presented last November. All Npower B2C customers and then all E. ON B2C customers will be transferred or migrated to this new technology. The new plan affirms our pledge to generate adjusted EBIT of at least GBP 200,000,000 in 2022. And we're also giving an outlook that the following years are going to be even stronger because we'll be able to benefit much more from this platform.
In addition to energy supplies, which is a highly competitive business, energy solutions also combines or involves a new partnership with customers. PV at home, which is just one example, installed more than 20,000 systems and households across Europe in the Q4 of 2019. They even posted a positive earnings for the first time. This segment offers significant growth options for many years to come. More and more households will have their own PV solutions on their home And we hope that more and more will choose E.
ON. Partnering with regional and local installation firms that market exclusively our solutions has enabled us to secure a leading market position in Europe. The sale of these offerings will also help us to maintain and even expand our customer base in Continental Europe. We always have to be more and more flexible and be more customer oriented. Ladies and gentlemen, we're very confident that we'll overcome the challenges ahead regardless of the crisis' duration and repercussions.
We stand for supply security even in challenging times. We're going to be a reliable partner for our customers. Our operating business is strong and robust. It enables us to propel innovation and growth from a secure predictable foundation. The megatrends of decarbonization, distributed solutions and digitization create long term growth opportunities for the operations of our business segments.
E. ON will live up to its social responsibilities and do its part in Europe, especially in this year. Together with you, we'll be able to master crisis. The new E. ON stands for customer oriented energy infrastructure.
Our strategy makes sustainability the engine of our future growth. This setup will be made the new makes the new E. ON even more robust and resilient. And with this, I'd like to hand over to Mark Spieker, our CFO, who will explain our financial plans to you.
Thank you, Johannes. Ladies and gentlemen, before I turn to our results for the 2019 financial year, our forecast for the current financial year and our midterm plan, I'd like to point out how robustly E. ON is positioned in the economic downturn that appears to be ahead. But I'd like to emphasize from the beginning that in this environment, we'll have to reevaluate our assumptions every day. In this sense, our situation is no different to that of the policymakers.
Our assumptions regarding the possible severity of the crisis economic repercussions change almost every day as well. As Johannes Teyssen already said, our business model is generally highly stable and reliable. This is also true in an economic crisis of the kind we may soon face. As a reminder, we generate nearly 80% of our earnings in regulated or crazy regulated businesses. The regulatory agency generally calculates our regulated Energy Networks total and our revenues independently of any assumptions regarding volume.
Each year, these revenues are translated into annual tariffs on the basis of a very specific volume forecast. Consequently, if the volume declines in a particular year, the proportion of allowable revenue generated under these tariffs also declines. This reduction in energy volume has an adverse impact on our earnings in these specific years. However, unused allowable revenues are recovered in subsequent years. Over the medium term and across the regulatory period, we therefore do not expect a significant earnings impact in our networks business.
This stable financial framework shouldn't come as a surprise. It exists for a clear reason and is in the interest of customers and the general public. Johannes has already pointed out that we operate the most one of the most essential critical infrastructures. It therefore makes sense that we're shielded from financial vulnerability, we'll use this shield to ensure that every step we take ensures that our networks continue to function reliably even in times of severe social and economic stress. So much for our Energy Network segment.
Turning to our customer solutions, which provides 20% of our earnings. I'd like to point out that this segment generates only about 10% to 15% of our earnings or less than 2% of the E. ON Group's earnings with business customers. We anticipate that residential customers' energy demand will increase during the crisis. At least developments in Italy seem to indicate that.
On the cash flow side, we expect temporary delays in payments from customers. Governments in all our markets are working on measures to preserve the liquidity in the industrial and customer sector. We can only call on governments to likewise take steps to strengthen, especially those companies that assume responsibility for critical infrastructure. Realistically, we have to expect that our planned investments for 2020 will encounter delays, if only because they will be significantly less construction capacity available. In summary, from today's perspective, the overall implications for our cash flow earnings and investments are actually limited.
But one thing is clear. Despite the stability of our business as a whole, it's of the utmost important for us to be extremely well prepared for various possible outcomes and to be as agile and foresightful as possible. In recent weeks, we've done this on the basis of our own calculations and for our markets and business and will continue to do so going forward. Having said all that, I'll now turn to the results of the 2019 financial year. For us, sales increased from €30,100,000,000 in 20 18 to €41,250,000,000 in 2019.
This is primarily attributable to the Energy the acquisition of the Energy Group in 2019, which was the predominant feature of the financial year. We increased adjusted EBIT significantly by 9% to €3,200,000,000 Our 2019 earnings for the first time include roughly CHF420 1,000,000 in earnings from innogy following the takeover in September. These earnings were generated primarily in innogy's network business, primarily in Germany. Innogy's contribution was partially offset by the absence of the businesses in the Renewables segment that were transferred to RWE. On a like for like basis, E.
ON's earnings were roughly at the prior year level. Adjusted net income of €1,500,000,000 was at the prior year level. Both are within the forecast range that we adjusted in November 2019 and or increased after the closing of the Innogy transaction. In fact, this is the 4th year in a row that our operating earnings have been in the upper half of our forecast range. Our core operating businesses, Energy Networks and Customer Solutions, both posted solid earnings.
Energy Networks adjusted EBIT of roughly €1,900,000,000 was at the prior year level. The €100,000,000 decline at customer solutions is principally attributable by €330,000,000 is attributable to regulatory price caps in the sales business in the United Kingdom. As Jonas Tyson already explained, we believe our core businesses have considerable investment and growth potential. Already now 80% of our earnings are contributed by the networks business, which is stable and regulated. Substantial investments in the segments are the main drivers, the main earning drivers.
Over the next 3 years, we plan to invest a total of roughly €13,000,000,000 The lion's share, 90% of our investments into our core business will go towards the energy supply in our markets and make an important contribution towards the successful transition to a sustainable zero carbon energy supply. And it will give E. ON resilience and predictability, especially in times of uncertainty. Realizing the vision of a climate neutral Europe by 2,050 will require substantial additional investment in renewable capacity and thus a massive expansion of energy infrastructure. Consequently, the energy transition represents a major multiyear investment opportunity for our energy networks.
It will enable us to further strengthen our position as a leading network operator. Our regulated asset base will increase by 3% to 5% each year as well. The European Green Deal and the climate package will likely increase this pace. I'll now turn to the 2020 forecast. As I said a moment ago, it does not yet factor in the what are limited implications of an economic downturn.
We expect the EON Group to deliver adjusted EBITDA of €7,100,000,000 to €7,300,000,000 in 2020 and an adjusted EBIT of €3,900,000,000 to €4,100,000,000 Of course, the planned synergies we announced at the start of the transaction with RWE will also play a role. We've told you that we expect to deliver a level of €600,000,000 to €800,000,000 in net synergies from 2022 onwards. Today, we can affirm the upper end of this range, roughly €740,000,000 from 2022 onwards and €780,000,000 from 2024 onwards. Most of these savings will come from our corporate functions and the improvement of our teen systems. We've factored these synergies into our medium term plan and are very confident that we will achieve them.
Our voluntary termination program has also just begun and we're making good progress towards achieving our 2020 targets. As you'd expect, we'll provide you with a transparent quarterly update on the achievement of these synergies. I'll now turn to the forecast for 2020 in more detail. We expect Energy Networks earnings to be unchanged or slightly lower relative to the pro form a numbers for 2019. EBITDA of €5,200,000,000 to €4,400,000,000 and EBIT of €3,300,000,000 to €3,500,000,000 Our German Networks business and our networks in East Central Europe and Turkey will deliver organic growth.
We expect earnings in Sweden to decline owing to the start of new regulatory pay rate. However, we expect this segment to deliver a slight growth in earnings over the 3 year period from 2020 to 2022. We expect Customer Solutions to deliver solid earnings growth in 2020, resulting in adjusted EBITDA of €1,100,000,000 to €1,300,000,000 and EBIT of €500,000,000 to €700,000,000 Growth in distributed energy infrastructure and a turnaround in the United Kingdom will be the main earning drivers here. We anticipate steady earnings growth over the coming 3 year period. This will be supported by additional growth in distributed energy infrastructure cost savings and expanding retail customer base and the turnaround in the United Kingdom that Johannes already mentioned.
We reaffirm our expectation that the U. K. Business will deliver adjusted EBIT of more than £100,000,000 in 2022. We are ambitious regarding the performance of our earnings per share, the EPS as well. EPS will benefit not only from EBIT growth, but also from the potential of currently favorable refinancing terms of our business.
We anticipate EPS will increase significantly faster than EBIT. Consequently, we expect our 2020 adjusted EBIT to be between €1,700,000,000 €1,900,000,000 and our EPS to grow at a significant rate of 10% to 15% annually over the next 3 years. This growth will enable us to reliably continue our dividend policy into the future. E. ON is committed to delivering year on year annual dividend increase of up to 5% over the next 3 years.
Clearly, the current situation will have an impact on every business, including E. ON. However, even considering all reasonable scenarios which we can foresee today and given we are very confident that we have a resilient business to ensure that we will be able to pay dividends for 2020 through to 2022 that are at least as high as the previous year's dividend. Coming back to sustainability, it's not only at the center of our business, but also our finance strategy. So far, E.
ON and Innogy have issued more than €3,500,000,000 in green bonds. In addition, the credit margin of our syndicated credit facility is linked to certain ESM sustainability rankings. Going forward, green financing will remain integral to our financing strategy and will benefit from our sustainable business profile. Our business is play a crucial role in the energy transition, and it's therefore not surprising that 95% of our investments are dedicated directly to the energy transition. The strict green bond framework we developed with specialist agencies will result in around €1,000,000,000 of investments being eligible for green bond funding.
I'll turn finally to our economic net debt, which stood at €39,400,000,000 at year end 2019. That corresponds to a pro form a debt factor of 5,700,000,000, which we intend to reduce to a level of around 5,000,000,000 over the medium term. This also means that we stand by our commitment to a strong BBB rating. This rating target assures us continuous access to the bond markets and thus to liquidity. At the start of the transaction with RWE, we stated clearly that we intend to conduct the transaction from a position of strength and from a solid financial foundation, and we stand by this.
The new A. ON stands for resilience, predictability, attractive dividend growth founded on sustainable earnings and a stable financial profile. Thank you. And with this, I hand things back to Johannes.
Well, I think that was a nice summary. And I think we should continue with the questions and answers. Let's start with the session. Johannes and Marc, thank you very much. I just heard that we have 170 participants in our webcast and I would like to ask you to give us your questions for this.
Please switch the video transmission to mute. And for the technical moderation, I'd like to pass the floor on to Mrs. Kish from Arkadine, our technical service provider. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now starting with the Q and A session.
With the receiver by using the receiver. The first question please. First question from Tom Kakena from Thomson Reuters. Good morning to everybody in Dusseldorf from Dusseldorf. I have two questions.
When will the squeeze out be completed for the innogy shareholders? And do you have you already received complaints from plaintiffs who are hoping for a higher price? Mr. Kekkenhoff. Well, of course, things are not really very quick in the legislative system currently.
We have the deadlines. We haven't received any note yet from notice from the courts, but we've received about 50 complaints from various entities, and we would be wise to expect about 3 months. But based on our experience, it might also take 3 to 5 months as we've seen in other companies. So we will probably have to expect the upper end of the range to be realistic, but we haven't received any complaint yet and it's really speculation. I expect that September will be the time when this will conclude for the end of the squeeze out that is.
You expect September, yes. The next question is from Stephan Boerter from DPAZ. Mr. Bertel, are you still on mute? And I would suggest that we continue with the next question from Christophe Steitz from Reuters.
From Frankfurt, can you hear me? I have two questions. Number 1, concerning strategy. Mr. Taisen, could you please explain why the customer solutions business fits so well with the to the networks business.
I'm asking you because you could also believe that it also might make sense to become a Yieldco only with operating of the network business that is not operating in the area of customer solutions anymore, why are you keeping both business areas, both segments? And secondly, when are you going to complete the disposal process in the Czech Republic? You're selling a business unit there. It's the largest one that you're selling in the context of the concessions that were made the European Commission? When will this process come to an end?
I had mentioned within the strategic concept context that the new energy system is customer oriented. Customers will have the power. In the past, it was the energy utilities and the system had the power. Now power is becoming more and more decentralized, very, very close to the customers. And that's why we believe that close cooperation with customers creates value.
And we've experienced this in data centers. It's not just about the connection. Everybody's talking about data centers consuming high amounts of energy. We have to provide solutions. In Sweden, we purchased a company called Chromatic, which provides energy solutions at a decentralized level.
And we wouldn't be able to grow in PV and batteries at as fast as we are growing if we didn't have the trust that we enjoy with customers and regulators supporting. The support of regulators is supported by positive customer experience and feedback that they give. It's not so much about operational synergies between both segments. They really don't exist, but it's about business synergies. We've also seen this with municipalities.
It's easier to get a concession if people give feedback to their delegates, to their representatives, that they trust the network operator. So we will keep this business. Disposal in the Czech Republic, it's you're right, it's the largest disposal, the largest transaction, but we're not giving any information on ongoing and pending proceedings. We believe that it will be delayed. The Czech Republic has very high restrictions concerning travels, etcetera.
This will not really expediate the process, but things expedite the process, but it will continue and come to an end. Thank you very much. The next question is from Benedikt Miller from Zutta Chutzeitung. Your line is open. Thank you very much.
Good morning. Number 1, Mr. Tyson, you mentioned that you have groups of people working in the system critical areas and that they will be self isolated. How many employees are affected? Where are they living?
How are they living? That might be of interest to our readers. With regard to green hydrogen, you also said that an early admixture of a high amount of hydrogen is currently being tested. Could you tell us what regulatory barriers you're faced with? What can politicians do to promote the hydrogen industry?
Mr. Mueller, thank you very much. Well, not the 14,000 will have to be self isolated. It's mainly about those working in the network centers, the dispatching centers, those who maintain stability, you can't do this offline. You have to work at these control centers.
At Bayernwerk, for instance, we still have operational units where people or they have beds. We hadn't really used them, but now they are being used. Shifts have been reorganized, the people have to live on the premises of the Bayan VAC company and they don't really see the colleagues from the other shifts. And at other locations, we rented accommodation not like the King of Thailand has, but they are living in well residential areas without contact to other people. It's not going to be easy, but our employees have shown understanding and our colleagues have also gone overnight to Sweden in conditions in adverse weather conditions.
So they asked our employees asked where they could help, where are they needed. And in administration, it's not always that easy. Well, green hydrogen is not really a regulatory topic for us. It's about well, about 10% of green hydrogen can be added to the pipelines that will keep the lines stable, will keep the lines tight. Now the question is whether we can increase this amount to 20%.
We have to test the pipelines. We have to test them during operation. We have to see what's possible. Hydrogen is very volatile. Other companies that produce green hydrogen are asking for regulatory support, and we are rather asking about for assistance from the regulatory, inspectors.
But the experience that we've had up to corona was good and we really don't need any further support. We're not asking for any further support.
The next question is from Andrew Honing from Einrich Post. Thank you. I had a question about the dormitory arrangements. Can you give us a number, how many people are affected? And is that in Northern Westphalia, in Braueiler?
And can you say how many employees of E. ON are affected? And then my standard question about job cuts up to 5,000 is what you want to reduce as part of the takeover? Do you have any new details there concerning locations? How many jobs will be lost in Munich, in Essen or in Dortmund?
Thank you. The number of the people affected, well, I do not know at the moment, a few 100. I don't think it's a 1,000, a few 100, but I do not have the concrete number. And to be frank and open, I do not have information for Northland Westphalia at the moment. As soon as we get it, we will send it to Via Inisher Prost and to Wats, to the local press.
Whether Brauweiler is affected or not, we will check. So we will provide this information as soon as we have it. Our crisis team records across the group the number of infected employees on a daily basis. Yesterday, the numbers stood at 30, if my memory serves me correct. I do get the numbers every day.
I think it was 32. That with workforce of 75,000 is a very low rate and most of these people never went back to work. So half came back from their skiing holidays And as we told them, they reported before they came back to work and we told everyone, no, do not come back home, check, and some then reported sick. But luckily, we've had no severe cases in the company until now. Everything have been all the cases were relatively harmless until now.
So people are staying at home now until the authorities tell them it's okay to go back. So as far as numbers are concerned for Essen and Dortmund, we announced numbers which have not changed, and we are sticking by the numbers of 5,000. We do not believe it's wise and we've agreed this with the Works Council to constantly change these numbers ups and downs. So the maximum number remains unchanged, and the numbers communicated for Essen and Dortmund are unchanged as well. Ms.
Hoening, so with only one n. Thank you. Next question is from Vera Ekko from Reuters. Good morning. I'd like to come back to the question of hydrogen and Avakon were to feed in up to 20% and test that rate.
Can you already announce some sort of milestone or a target date or any progress that has been achieved? Wouldn't you also have to try coming your forthcoming strategy to work towards electrolysis as well. This is more of a subject for the gas industry, but there's a lot of talk about convergence of the energy systems. And do you see I mean, the TSLs, I know quarrel with the Federal Network Agency, Can you circumvent that in a way? Or can you use your lobby power to bring this forward, maybe suspend EEG given the coronavirus for that raw material to be available more cheaply?
The last question, Ms. Eckert, I'm not sure whether I fully understood it. It sounds dangerous as I do not have any interim results concerning Avakon. You're right. There are 2 tests ongoing, the 20% admixture test.
We will announce that to the media once this process has been completed. I do not have a concrete time schedule. Salzgitter, we are working with Salzgitter AG and we are helping them to produce green steel. And there, we are building a small wind farm with Linda and Dalsketa and us. We together have installed a small electrolyzer system and allow the trial this the production of green steel.
Now what about the lobbying fight? I think we need to be careful here to be open, to be frank, and we are skeptical how much electrolysis should be developed in Germany. Now if you look at the optimistic plans concerning the expansion of renewables, which you fully support and where we're doing everything to connect everything that's there, it can only be only a fraction of the German green power needs can be produced in Germany because of the limited service. And we need to be careful. It's a noble product.
And converting this twice by hydrogen is may not be such a good thing. And green hydrogen will be more a question of energy imports. 70% of primary energy is being imported today, and that will not fully change with green electrification. Most of our imports going forward or most of our energy going forward will have to be imported and that will require a carrier substance. Green gases, so if you start the subsidy machine too early as with PAV and then cause an avalanche of costs, As you mentioned, costs are a difficult thing at the moment.
And for that reason, we believe in Germany, it's about demonstrating know how and not large scale trials. And therefore, we would recommend to be careful to do something, but not on a wider scale. It's too early for that. Sorry. And renewables, I'm not a proponent of changing regulatory regimes in a crisis.
That's very difficult. These investments are made over decades, and you cannot say in retrospect that the environment, not the green environment, but the political environment has changed, and you can change the regulatory regime, the people, and it's often private individuals, pension funds who have invested in renewables, they have assurances for several years. It's people need reliability. Otherwise, people won't invest in the long term. And then we can simply forget about the energy transition because trust if there's no trust in the development of infrastructure, then the basic trust of investors is gone and then nothing will work.
And if you were suggesting that, no, I wouldn't go along with such a proposal. Allow me to ask an additional question. You mentioned imports. Would you become involved there? You should never say never, but also your question, do we want to build electrolysis plants?
Well, on a small scale, as with Salzgitter, yes. But we have only just specialized and we are still broad in our portfolio. Earlier on, we were asked whether we should dispose of our sales business. I don't believe that. But should we now try to get more business into our group that is needed for the energy transition?
I wouldn't say yes from today's perspective, but who knows what the future will bring. Okay. Thank you. The next question is from Ralph Kupke, Energy and Management. Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Tyson, I've got two questions. In your statement, you mentioned that you would expect power demand to double over the next few years. The German government has responded to 2 inquiries in parliament by stating that it was expecting the numbers to stagnate or even decline over the coming years. My question is, how why are you saying something different?
Are you wiser than the German government? Or isn't the German government as wise as you? And the second question is about solar. You mentioned that you installed 20,000 PV systems Europe wide on roofs across Europe. And most of that will have been in Germany, I assume.
Now if the 52 gigawatt cap isn't introduced soon, will this business in Germany not come to an end sometime soon? That's my question. Now the first one, increase in power demand. From my own contacts with representatives of the government whose names I have forgotten, it's clear that even within the German government, there's high insecurity and uncertainty as to whether the numbers of experts from the past still fit a Green Deal time. Nobody has a crystal ball.
In the charts which we published today, we have included sources, and most of the experts see massive growth. I've heard Mr. Timmans, and if my memory serves me correctly, he said in The Hague 3 weeks ago that power demand will triple. I hadn't heard that number. Maybe that was only for a partial market somewhere, I don't know.
So they are expecting a significant increase as well. In many cases, governments can only listen to what the experts say, and now more results of studies seem to be coming in. We don't have a crystal ball. We believe that a doubling over the next decades is plausible. Otherwise, we do not believe how the case could be climate neutral.
Now your question about solar, yes, I was talking about 20,000 Europe wide, but no, as far as I remember, and we would have to give you the numbers. Germany wasn't the biggest country here. I don't know whether it was Holland or Poland. 1 of them it was one of them. Germany, I believe, is 3rd, but we will not announce the exact numbers per country.
And then it's U. K. And Italy, I think, in that sequence. In Germany, there's been a significant increase and efficiency has improved as well. And yes, the 52 gigawatt cap needs to go.
That is a break. That's putting a break on developments. And the government have announced, well, this is currently being taken as a hostage, so to speak, concerning distances to wind turbines. So to ensure that things move forward. That's not wise.
Apparently, they're making legislation on a daily basis. Maybe the content can be addressed. It was wise to put the AGM on the agenda. We said we would try one in June and weren't sure whether it would work out or not. Now we have high expectations that if the parliament approves, then we can hold it digitally in June in a small group of people with lots of people online and do that efficiently and then also pay out the dividend.
So sometimes in a crisis like this, things start to move where you would where you thought it would never happen in a country and all of a sudden it works over the weekend. Thank you very much. The next question is from Reuven Barton from Energate. Good morning. From my home office, I have two questions.
One is about the annual report. There you're showing for customer solutions and adjusted EBIT. That has declined by €100,000,000 That's mainly due to the British business. Can you comment on that number or can give that number without the U. K.
Effect? That's what I would be interested in. 1, whether it had remained positive or whether you have a 0 or whether that's negative as well? And then my second question is about the investment. Mr.
Spieker, you said that 90% of your investment would be go towards networks and 10% customer solutions, that sounds like clear priorities to me. And what you mentioned for customer solutions sounded as though as you wanted to make things more efficient. And my question is whether there will be room for growth in new business areas. Do you expect growth there? Or is it in more about making it lean on IT platforms?
Both questions will be answered by Mr. Schappeek. I'll quickly give you the current number, Mrs. Hoehring, about. As of today, we have 37 confirmed COVID cases of 75,000 employees and 1.5 1,000 have self isolated voluntarily.
That's a huge number, but it also shows how conservative and how careful our crisis management team is. And we maybe we have fewer numbers because we are extremely cautious, but Mr. Speaker is now going to comment on the other two questions. Let me start with the investment topic. 90% of the investments go to what we call distributed energy infrastructure.
That's aside from the regulated networks. It's also district heating. It's local generation systems on-site. That's a business which is part of the customer solution segment. So wherever we invest with customers in processes, in locations and set up generation units or operate micro grids, that's a customer solutions business.
And that's the area which Johannes mentioned earlier where we have high synergies, thanks to the regional structures we have via our network business. And that way, we can support our customers with distributed energy infrastructure. The remaining 10% still correspond annually to roughly €500,000,000 And you cannot really say that this is the so called retail commodity area, the classical power and gas area. And we are still investing €500,000,000 there every year. The bulk of this investment goes towards new IT architecture in these areas, and that's a clear exclamation mark.
We are not just trying to save money there. Yes, we want to become more efficient. And given the competitive situation, that is a must. But we do not shy away from taking the necessary investments to empower the IT there to ensure that we have a good high customer experience in future. Now as far as the UK is concerned, I understood your question in that you want to know what the EBIT contribution of the UK was.
And if you deduct that, how the remaining sales business has developed. Without the U. K, the sales business was more or less stable in all markets. That's also true for the German market. And at the same time, with a stable profitability, we have significantly increased our customer numbers, particularly in Germany, 300 50,000 more customers.
We have now as an industry expert, you will know that when you take customers on board, then in the 1st year, that will generate costs, acquisition costs. And despite this significant growth of 150,000 customers, we've kept profitability stable in Germany. I think that's a strong signal. And hence, the developments in the U. K.
Are a special case for us. And Johannes said, we have taken the necessary measures to become profitable again also in the U. K. And we assume that this will happen until 2021 at the latest and that in 2022, we will have or generate £100,000,000 which will be adequate for this market. This answers your question.
Yes.
The next question is from Pietra Zog from Dow Jones. Your line is open. Hello, from my working from home. The carbon price is very low at €16 That is the same level that it had in spring 2018. And the gas business has become more profitable.
This has does the carbon price have an impact on the gas business? Are renewables under pressure once it's easier for the conventional fuels to get certificates at lower prices? Well, we're not engaged in electricity production anymore apart from the 3 nuclear power plants that are also going to be shut down in the next few years. Of course, we have market data on the dark spreads and the spark spreads. But since we're not really operating in this segment, you have to ask RWE and Uniper about the implications on their plants, and it also has an depends on the efficiency of the individual plants.
I can't give you an answer to that. The carbon price and renewables, of course, the system costs are under a lot of pressure. Renewables always receive the difference between the market price and the subsidies and apparently, this is going to increase considerably so that the AET levy will probably rise next year in order to be able to pay for the system costs. That's not nice. We would have liked to have seen a different situation.
Maybe some of the solar plants will not receive subsidies. But for new investment decisions, low carbon prices are not good at all. In auctions, you have to offer competitive prices and very often you have a long end that is not subsidized. And if investors lose trust in the market prices, it's not really beneficial, but we hope that we're not living in an Armageddon situation. Market prices are really specific to 2020 and wholesale prices did not rise as much as in the delivery year, and that's why I don't really have any information about whether investors are more reluctant in the renewable energy segment or not.
Financing might even be more relevant in the short term. Are they able to get financing in the short term? I haven't really received any information from the network that projects have been withdrawn from network connection. But currently, we are 2 years behind. We are now connecting those projects that started construction about 2 years ago.
So we can't really give you any information about the current situation. My answer might not be that informative. Thank you very much. Currently, we don't have any further questions. Thank you very much.
If you don't have any further questions, I would like to thank you for your great interest in E. ON. Please stay healthy and accompany us into the future. Thank you very much from Essen.