A warm welcome to our annual press conference of E.ON SE in Essen. I would like to welcome the representatives of the media here in the room at Brüsseler Platz and all participants who are joining us virtually. And for all the participants in the room, I would like to say that no alarms are planned, no drills are planned. If there is an alarm, please use the emergency exits to the left and to the right. Leonhard Birnbaum, our CEO, and our CFO, Nadia Jakobi, are here today. Both of them will walk you through our business figures and the past fiscal year. And as always, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions.
Thank you, Lars. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our new energy club here. You will have seen that we have refurbished part of this building here last year to offer our employees a more modern work environment, but also for an event like this to take place in a nicer environment. You can have a look around later. You can hear the rooms over there to the left. Okay. The annual press conference is not just special because we have new rooms here, but it's taking place at a special time here as well. Last Sunday's federal election in Germany is still very present. And today we had the publication of the plans of the EU Commission on the Clean Industrial Deal. It's a very special day.
Therefore, a big thank you to you for being here today on this day and opting for our numbers, even though there's so much exciting news out there in the world. For us, it's crystal clear that things cannot go on like this. Germany has been in recession in its third year, and that is unacceptable. It's unprecedented in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. It must remain unprecedented. Only economically strong Germany will have sufficient financial scope to simultaneously address all priorities: defense policy, industrial transformation, and energy transition. It has to happen at the same time. And this is why the priority must be on strengthening Germany's competitiveness. And we need a government that's able to take action, but it's also prepared to do a bold reform agenda. If the coalition talks result in the lowest common denominator, that's no acceptable outcome.
Later on, we can talk about politics, but let's talk about E.ON first of all. For 2024, we set out a very ambitious growth and investment planning, and as E.ON, we have delivered again. We have, as you can see on the charts here, a Group EBITDA of EUR 9.0 billion, which is a very good result at the upper end of our guidance range, and this resulted in Adjusted Group Net Income of EUR 2.9 billion, which is in line with our guidance as well. In a nutshell, E.ON remains on its growth path, and the driver of this growth path has been the energy transition, and it's also creating new jobs in this period of economic weakness. In the last fiscal year alone, we hired around 4,000 new employees, more than half of them in Germany.
Most of this build-up was in the energy networks business, not least because we are doing everything and have to do everything we can to connect new customers to the grid as quickly as possible. We delivered strong financial results, but we also invested in the future. We invested EUR 7.5 billion in the future last year, and that was one billion more than last year in 2023. We will see later that we plan to bring this up by one billion this year. The growth path of E.ON is reflected in our numbers as well. The fact that we were able to deliver this was down to our employees who achieved something really big. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to them. E.ON remains determined to be the playmaker of Europe's and Germany's energy transition.
But like any company that operates in a sustainable environment, we never invest at any price. Every price investment must be worthwhile for our customers and for our shareholders. And the prerequisites for this in Germany is a return on our network investments that is competitive by international standards. Whether this will be the case for the new electricity regulatory period starting in 2029 is not foreseeable for us today. We have therefore made a decision: as long as we don't have transparency on German regulation, we will not expand the investment program announced in March for the time being. Our outlook therefore remains for the period 2024-2028. Without significant improvements by the regulator, private investment in network infrastructure will no longer be made in Germany to the required extent, or will even be withdrawn from our country.
This could lead to delays in the transformation and also additional costs for our customers. And if there's one thing that has proved expensive over the recent years, it's a lack of infrastructure or the expansion of renewables without a synchronized expansion of grids. In those areas where we already have transparency and clarity, we are taking the opportunity to invest more. For example, thanks to the quicker depreciation of gas grid works, we can invest EUR 1 billion more in sustainable electricity grids. And this brings our total updated investment program to EUR 43 billion for the period from 2024 to 2028 instead of the 2024 we had previously. Well, ladies and gentlemen, so much on E.ON's numbers.
Now, a few words about the environment we're operating in. We have delivered at E.ON despite a weak overall economy and despite an unstable governing coalition and despite all the changes we've seen.
So what do we expect from the new German government? Our wish is very clearly: we need an energy transition update. We cannot continue the way we have done up until now. We cannot define on expansion targets that must be achieved at any cost. A new German government will take a much closer look at the cost of the energy system for our citizens and for our customers. And let me make a few points to emphasize what I mean. First point, we need a greater focus on the actual demand. We should only build what is actually needed. That may sound banal, but it isn't. Because so far, policymakers have approached the energy transition without looking at the demand, but at the political targets for 2030, for 2040, 2045. And we then build according to these targets, regardless of the actual developments. And that's reflected in the costs.
These are unnecessary costs. We should not have only at a later point in time. The second point is what we build. When we build something, we have to build it in such a way that it makes sense in terms of system costs. We cannot build wind and ground-mounted PV systems anywhere without regard to infrastructure, which increases dispatching costs continuously. If we then bear in the way in an infrastructure-based way, then this would drive down costs for our customers. If we do then build, we have to make sure that it's affordable as well. Legal prioritization of underground power cabling may have suited the sentiment of the 2000s, but this is no longer luxury. We can afford this today, 2.7 x of the costs. This adds up over the years to billions of euros.
We need a greater focus on the market instead of detailed political requirements. The further expansion of renewables will continue to require investment support, of course. For example, offshore, to give you a clear example, capacity-based premiums are the right approach here. But the following must apply also: only what needs support should actually be subsidized. Rooftop solar systems certainly do not. They have long since paid for themselves by optimizing self-consumption. Once built, renewables or everything needs to be done for them to behave as rational market actors. The last amendment of Germany's Energy Act, which wasn't adopted, and the one that was adopted, includes a curb on solar feed-in peaks and a mechanism to suspend subsidies in the event of negative power prices. These are the right signals, and the new German government must continue pursuing this path systematically.
Any market orientation also means finding an intelligent solution for network fees. The production of energy by the end user, who becomes a prosumer rather than a consumer, has long been a reality. And that's good. Every prosumer remains connected to the grid, however. There will be days in which they have to take all of their power from the grid. It's a kind of insurance. And for every insurance, you pay an insurance premium. So for the times where you don't need the insurance. So if the network fees are much more performance-based in this sense, we can spread the burden over many more and also stronger shoulders. And market orientation also means using market mechanisms for security of supply. And in particular, that's why we are in favor of a capacity market that's open to all technology. Third point, more focus on flexibility for our customers' benefit.
We've all seen it. Dark Doldrums and the volatility is increasing. That means we need more flexibility in the system. Flexibility, however, is also an opportunity for our customers to use their systems and use their consumption behavior to reduce their costs or even earn money, and that's why we have to digitize the system to be more flexible as well. And this takes me to my last point. As you can see here, this is a smart meter. The gray box and the blue thing is the communication tool here. Together, they are the famous smart meter, a digital measuring unit with a communication unit. The German smart meter is exactly the opposite of simple, and that's quite a bit because without the smart meter, we cannot use the advantages of the system. Also, cannot be flexible. It's clear.
You can have a look at it and have it explained to you later on for those of you who are here today. This should be an incentive for you to come and see us personally next time. We rolled out the wrong smart meter. We didn't roll out this smart meter. We are changing continuously. So too much technical requirements. Our European neighbors have fewer requirements in the first step and are therefore much cheaper and much further ahead. We have said we want a Ferrari for everyone who wants it. And the answer is it's very expensive to roll out 40,000 Ferraris. It should have been a Beetle instead. That's one. And in addition, we have made it more difficult by doing a patchwork of government oversight and market roles.
It's not just the basic service metering point operators, but also competitive metering point operators and more recently a metering point operator of the last resort. I'm not going to try and explain it. Even some of us don't understand it, and our customers will never understand it. But it's right. You should not have to understand this. But this complexity costs money because it has to be reflected in our IT systems. If there are different actors, then every one of these actors must be reflected in the IT system. If the number of these actors changes, then all the IT systems need to be changed. And we then allowed the BSI to become involved as well. We have defined a control box here as well, which you'll see here, which is totally superfluous and only produces additional money. And BSI will have an explanation for that.
But in the end, BSI didn't do their homework because they prevented the digitization of the energy transition in Germany. So the German government must urgently restructure the smart meter rollout. And we've always said make it simple and roll it out via the network operators. That makes it easier, and then our customers will be able to benefit. So I have my points as far as the energy update is concerned. But the core point is it must not continue the way it has done until now. We've spent too much money for too little success. Our customers have seen too little benefit. Or to put it in a positive way, they should have or could have seen much more benefit had we taken their demands more seriously. So the new German government has to find a turnaround in this country. And this is also true for energy policy.
But the tasks for the German government are huge, of course. There's no lack of tasks going forward. The new German government must also simultaneously invest in the country's innovative strength. And that requires boldness and pragmatism, which is the opposite of what we've done here with the Smart Meter. On a positive note, all of the problems of the Smart Meter are solved by the E.ON Grid Box, by the way. The useless components integrated here are ruled over by our Control Box. So the customer does have a benefit in the end of the day. But we could have made the Smart Meter cheaper and used a Control Box by E.ON instead from the very start. So we need to work on our innovative strength, on education, on labor productivity. And of course, we need to fight bureaucracy.
To be honest, we're not going to be successful if we create new jobs, continue to create new jobs in public administration. There's a great statistic that says that if we were to have a hiring freeze, we would go back to by the middle of the next decade where we were in 2013. If anyone is saying we have too few people in public administration, I'd say we have simply to deal with too much that. We need to become Europe's locomotive again. Today, the Clean Industrial Deal will be presented, and at the moment, well, we'll look at it in more detail. But apparently, this will help smaller companies and larger companies like ours to a certain extent. Updating this every five years is, of course, less bureaucratic.
Ms. von der Leyen said, "I want to make business again easier in Europe." I would say she hasn't succeeded. It's less difficult, but not easier. But to put it positively, I do believe that now the fundamental discussion is being held in Germany, in Europe at the moment. We are now only talking about four legislative acts from the last commission period, four out of 13,000, to put it that way, as Mr. Draghi said. But the core we're talking about here is, will it make the world better by introducing reporting obligations and penalize them and get NGOs to enforce them? So these reporting obligations allow NGOs to have a greater say. And this is a fundamental discussion that's being had at the moment. And that's why I will look at today's step optimistically.
It's the right step in the right direction to see whether we can achieve a turnaround today. So we will look at this. But regardless of what the political environment looks like, we will make our contribution to the energy transition for our customers to benefit. And with that, I hand things over to Nadia.
Thank you very much, Leo. Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to welcome you to our annual press conference today. And I would also like to emphasize that in fiscal 2024, we again delivered on our promises. We ended the year with a strong group earnings and raised our operating efficiency to a new level. We worked hard to achieve this success, especially because in many respects, 2024 was another challenging year. We continued to drive Europe's energy transition with billions of investments and at the same time created strong value for our shareholders.
Both are and will remain our mission. I'll start by taking a look at our operating earnings. At group level, we concluded the fiscal year with adjusted group EBITDA of EUR 9 billion at the upper end of our guidance range. This is mainly attributable to the strong operating performance of our energy networks and energy retail segments. Adjusted group net income, as Leo just mentioned, was amounted to EUR 2.9 billion , which is fully in line with our guidance. Compared to the previous year, the group EBITDA decreased due to positive one-off effects in 2023. Adjusted for these effects, our underlying EBITDA increased by roughly EUR 600 million .
Our investment-driven growth and our strong operating performance were the main drivers for this. And now this brings me to the results of our segments. Our energy networks segment increased its adjusted EBITDA to EUR 6.9 billion .
We benefited in particular from higher investments in our network infrastructure in all European regions. In 2024, we again added around 500,000 new connections to our distribution networks. This enables us to connect millions of customers in Europe to new sustainable energy. Other drivers included higher wheeling volumes and lower costs for network losses in Hungary. Let's turn to our energy retail business. Its adjusted EBITDA of EUR 1.8 billion was below the previous year's record result, but at the upper end of our guidance. In a challenging market environment, we were able to keep our customer base at a stable level and achieve operational improvements also in 2024. Our third segment, energy infrastructure solutions, whose adjusted EBITDA of roughly EUR 560 million reached the prior year level.
We were able to compensate for weather-related low volumes in the first half of 2024 with higher plant availability in the United Kingdom. Ladies and gentlemen, in fiscal 2024, our adjusted group EBITDA was not only at the upper end of our guidance, we also increased our investments in Europe's energy transition to a new benchmark. Our total investments rose by EUR 1 billion year over year to EUR 7.5 billion. This actually puts us well above the EUR 7.2 billion we had originally planned. These investments will pay off in the years ahead and support our growth. As in the prior year, the majority of our investments went toward our network infrastructure. We invested about EUR 5.8 billion in fiscal 2024 to expand, modernize, and digitalize our energy networks. That's EUR 700 million more than in 2023.
Our investments are playing an important role in making energy infrastructure in Germany and Europe fit for the future. We also raised our operational efficiency and network expansion to a new level. 90% of network components are now standardized across all our business units in Germany. This creates the basis for additional automation and future proof supply chains. We again raised our investments in our energy retail segment as well. They amounted to around EUR 550 million, which represents an increase of nearly 25%. This increase was due in particular to higher investments and the further improvement of digital customer offerings and e-mobility charging solutions. One focus in fiscal 2024 was on continuing to systematically digitalize our energy sales. Two-thirds of our customer contacts are already completely digital. We also strengthened our customers' financial participation in the energy transition by introducing more flexibility solutions.
Our investments in the energy infrastructure solutions segment increased by more than one-third to just under EUR 1 billion. The year-over-year increase is primarily due to higher investments in the battery storage and smart meter business in the United Kingdom and the expansion of our commercial and industrial customer business in Germany. We have thus made energy more sustainable and also more affordable for cities, municipalities, and companies. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings me to our guidance for fiscal 2025. Leonhard Birnbaum's remarks already made clear that we find ourselves in an environment characterized by political and macroeconomic uncertainty. Nevertheless, we anticipate a significantly positive earnings performance in fiscal 2025. We expect to increase adjusted group EBITDA to EUR 9.6 billion-EUR 9.8 billion. This growth will be founded on our efforts on the investment side.
The continuous increase in investments on our network infrastructure is again a particularly noteworthy factor, as well as regulatory conditions in our international energy network business. We want to again increase our total investments in fiscal 2025. We are planning to invest EUR 8.6 billion, of which just under 80% will go toward our networks. We expect adjusted group net income in a range of EUR 2.85- EUR 3.05 billion. This corresponds to adjusted earnings per share of EUR 1.09- EUR 1.17. Our strong earnings in fiscal 2024 and our positive guidance for 2025 will enable us to propose an increase in the dividend by EUR 0.02 to EUR 0.55 per share at the annual general meeting on May 15. This is in line with our goal of raising the dividend by up to 5% annually.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Leonhard Birnbaum emphasized, the regulatory framework is of central importance for our medium-term planning. For the fifth regulatory period for power in Germany, we have not yet received sufficient clarity from 2029 onward, and therefore, we are unable to give you the usual outlook for the next five years. We'll issue a statement on this as soon as we have sufficient transparency for this time horizon, but nevertheless, we'd like to give you an update of our plan through to 2028. E.ON has a solid financial foundation. At the same time, we have a clear plan for implementing the energy transition. We want to build on this foundation to increase our adjusted EBITDA to more than EUR 11.3 billion by 2028. This revises our previous target of more than EUR 11 billion slightly upward.
The reason for this is that we expect our network business to deliver additional earnings. We expect Adjusted Group Net Income to increase from EUR 3.3 billion to around EUR 3.4 billion. We'll continue to move forward with our investment program announced for 2024 to 2028 and invest in particular where we already have clarity from the regulator. The EUR 1 billion increase in investments results from the faster depreciation of our gas networks. Our updated planned total investments will now amount to EUR 43 billion. We plan to invest EUR 35 billion of it in our network infrastructure. In all our investments, we'll continue to pay very close attention to ensuring that we create added value for our shareholders. E.ON is in an excellent position to grow profitably in the years ahead, and this is reflected in both our strong guidance for 2025 and the improved outlook for 2028.
That concludes my remarks for this morning. With this, I'll hand things back to Lars Rosumek. Thank you.
Thank you to both of you. I now open the Q&A session. Here in the room, you have the opportunity to ask a question by pressing the button on your microphone, and we will then call you up. For those of us who've joined us virtually, just raise your virtual hand, and it would be great if you who have joined us online to quickly switch on your camera. We have the first question already here. The first question is from Ms. Krapp from Handelsblatt. Good morning. You just mentioned the industrial deal, which is being presented today. Mr. Birnbaum, first question to you. What do you expect there in terms of change?
You said it's more relevant for the smaller businesses, but it was leaked a week ago. It's also about networks and grids. So what do you expect this to bring? And my second question is, the EU has announced in its program that it would reduce the grid costs as quickly as possible and the electricity tax as quickly as possible. What would you say? When is it realistic, and what would it cost the German government? Well, first of all, on Europe, the background is we have seen four legislative packages, which are now on the table, so to speak, on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Whatever there will be in terms of simplification will be less relevant for us because we are not involved in the international manufacturing business. So that's one part where you would have to ask others who are more affected.
And then we have the CSDDD, the Supply Chain Directive, the CSRD, the Reporting Directive, and the Taxonomy Regulation. All of the simplifications in these areas will mean less bureaucracy for us. But what we're seeing at the moment is limited. Yes, it's helpful for us to only do it every five years and not every year for every supplier. And yes, it's helpful if you don't have to do, can assume for all the smaller ones that they meet the requirements. But the question is, of course, why can't we do it for all the EU companies? Why do I have to assume that will be in breach? And why do I have to expect it? Why isn't it the state's responsibility? So there is simplification, but it's not a fundamental change because these simplifications are often limited to the smaller companies.
And as I say, okay, the bigger companies are capable of doing this. But of course, I'll have to set up a system for that. But if I have to set up a system for each topic, I will have 50 systems at the end of the day, which will be a problem for me as a big company at the end of the day. So I'm hoping for a much bigger reduction. What's on the table now is by far not enough, but it is the right step in the right direction, and it triggers the right discussion. And we are already seeing the outcry of various political parties and NGOs who are saying it's devastating. I believe this is a fundamental discussion we need to have whether you can save the world by reporting obligations and get companies to do the government's responsibility.
If it triggers some sort of rethinking, then it's a good start and we're having the right discussion, but to be clear, more will be needed for E.ON to see a substantial change. Secondly, I don't know how quickly this will happen. I can't answer that. It depends on how quickly the government will be able to act and bring proposals into Parliament. I hope very quickly because we have no time to lose. As far as I'm concerned, it's the right step to reduce taxes to European minimum and it's also included in the Affordable Energy Act of the European Union, so I'd say fine. The Affordable Energy Act has more light than shadows, but it's okay and therefore, I can't give you the total. It'll depend on how quickly a government goes how far. Thank you. We have a number of questions here and also online.
Let me say who's next. Benedikt Müller-Arnold from Der Spiegel, then Mr. Rumbacher, then Christoph Steitz from Reuters, and then Nadine Bös, Eva Brendel from Bloomberg, and virtually Annette Becker. Next up, Mr. Müller-Arnold from Der Spiegel. Great. Huge interest. I have two energy policy questions. You just mentioned the depreciation of the gas networks. The heat transition is also relevant for you elsewhere. Demand for heat pump development of heating networks. How do you see what the German government should do as far as you're concerned? There are demands. I mean, the Heating Act needs to be done away with. How would you see that? And the second question is similar. Mr. Merz said very clearly on Monday that as far as he's concerned, we need a decommissioning moratorium for nuclear energy in Germany so everything can be checked. So should you have to stop decommissioning?
Is that too? Okay. The heat transition, what we need there is an electrification of the heat sector because that's how we can decarbonize as quickly as possible in this area. For that, we need the burden on electricity to be reduced, so taxes, etc. That's the right step, and then we need to think about where we can do targeted subsidies and how we can integrate district heating in the whole topic, so rather than deleting one individual act, we need to check all the acts that are in place. The district heat regulation without changing the building regulation would make no sense. It's okay to tackle the topic and then deal with it consistently with all the other rules and regulations that are in place. That's one. Decommissioning moratorium, that's no good whatsoever.
And who are we to tell our people, well, just lie in the hammock for two years until the policymakers have decided on what will happen? We want a decommissioning dismantle. We don't want to see any delay there whatsoever. Nuclear energy, this topic could have been discussed back in 2016, but not 2025, 2026. Thank you. Next, Rumbacher from Energate behind the camera over there. Yes, I will acoustically ask my question, so we should be able to manage. I have two questions. One concerning the regulatory framework, which you mentioned. You said that there need to be significant changes or improvements over the regulatory period from 2029 onwards for you to concrete or make your investment plans more concrete. Can you say anything? What kind of significant improvements you mean here? That's number one. So the regulatory framework and then the smart meter rollout.
There became known last week that the Federal Network Agency has reprimanded grid operators to make more progress, and I would like to know in this context, did you receive a letter or E.ON companies receive a letter from the Federal Network Agency as well, so are some of your subsidiaries part of the companies who've been urged to be quicker as well, and in this context, I'd also like to ask, well, you said the smart meter rollout should be in the hands of the grid operators, now there are market voices saying, but they are exactly the ones who were kind of reserved up until now, and they are partly to blame maybe for the delays we've seen, so what's motivating you to say that the grid operators should be the acting players here? Okay. The numbers are good. They don't require further explanation.
I mean, there's lots to explain on the political side and on the regulation. Okay, concrete improvements. We need better return on our equity. For the current regime, we don't have a sufficient return on our investment. And looking forward, we don't have that to attract capital. And it's not deciding what parameter we change, Capital One or Two or X-Gen or controllable cost, non-controllable cost. In the end, it depends on the overall system. Is the return from the overall system better? And it needs to be better. Otherwise, we cannot mobilize the capital we're talking about and cannot do the investments that are desired. So I would not give you a target number for each parameter, but we need a better return on our equity overall. So much on the regulation side. Now, the metering point operators, yes, there are two debates here.
Yes, E.ON is by far the metering point operator that is ahead. We've got 600,000, which we've rolled out. We want to bring this up to one million this year. By the way, it's not a lot. I think in E.ON, we have 15 million group-wide. Germany for us is the smallest smart meter market. Okay, it's by far our biggest retail market, which kind of shows the problem. We've rolled it out. We have an obligation for those who fall into the categories. 20% there with E.ON, we've already reached 90% there at the start of the year. De facto, we have completed our mandatory rollout in the past already. Indeed, I think 500 households received a letter because they haven't even started with their metering rollout yet.
I just told you that we have already done what we are supposed to do, basically. I don't know whether the Federal Network Agency sort of sent out blanket letters to everyone, but we have done what we are supposed to do, what we are supposed to do. Now back to the question, why? The network operator did the smart meter rollout everywhere except in the UK, and it did it everywhere much faster and much cheaper than in Germany. The problem in Germany is not that the grid operators cannot deliver. The problem is that we have a system which de facto does not work and has not worked.
If I look at what the money we've spent as E.ON and how much time and effort we've spent in having one million rolled out sometime soon and what we did to roll out one million smart meters in Sweden, there is a huge difference there. So it's a regulatory topic. It's a technical topic. The authorities are responsible here, and we need to address this once again. Thank you. Next question, Dr. Armhelger. Thank you. I have only one question. Do you plan any price increases for your 12 million electricity customers in Germany and your two million gas customers in Germany? We are not planning any price increases at the moment. Thank you. Then we have the first question virtually, Annette Becker from Börsen-Zeitung, please. I hope you can see me and hear me. I only have a very quick question.
You spoke about the redispatch costs having increased so much. Can you say what you spent there in 2024 and how that compared with the two prior years? Well, to be honest, I can't give you the absolute numbers. I have to ask my experts. We don't have a final number for the total year 2024. We're still determining that. Up until now, we can say that, and we look at the whole market of the redispatch costs there, and that in comparison to last year where we had something like EUR 4 billion for the whole year. In the first three quarters, we've already seen a decline. But I think the exact number for the first three quarters is somewhere around EUR 2 billion.
But I will have that checked. We can supply you with the numbers later. Then I do wonder that they have gone up if they've decreased.
There's two things. The amount of redispatch we need to do, so how many terawatt hours or gigawatt hours we redispatch. That's continuously growing. But then there's the question of how expensive redispatch is because for every gigawatt hour redispatch, we have to buy and sell. If the wholesale markets drop, then despite increasing quantities and redispatch, we see temporary decreases in the costs. But we have an underlying trend of redispatch quantities. And depending on wholesale price, prices will go up and down. And then 2022, 2023 was very expensive. 2024, less expensive. So the customers did better there. But the fundamental problem is that it's still on the increase. Thank you. Mr. Steitz from Reuters.
Hello. I have a few questions, Mr. Birnbaum. You said that you do not want to speculate on figures when you're talking about the return on investment in the area of networks.
In which countries do you see a regulatory framework that you would also like to have in Germany just to compare? People always say that the return on networks is too low in Germany, but what would be adequate for you? And in which countries are they adequate? Now, if the federal government has other important topics to address and if it takes longer until something changes in the area of network regulation, what would that mean for you specifically? Would that mean that you would be investing less in Germany and more in other European countries? What is the strategic impact for you? And the next question, what are your current efforts with regard to selling the Romanian business to MVM, and the local regulator was interested in prohibiting this? Then I'll take the first question, you take the other two.
Other countries, well, we've seen that after the interest rate change, when we moved from zero interest rate to a higher interest rate level, we saw that in all markets, we saw an increase of the return apart from Germany. Germany was the only market where we saw the decline, and I think that really brings it down to the point. If you find better regimes elsewhere, well, where? Finland, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, it was better everywhere than in Germany. And that's the core topic. The other interest environment and other markets have appreciated our investments to a greater extent, but I don't want to further speculate. Now, let's get back to Redispatch costs in order to give you an answer to this question.
Now, the redispatch costs for the entire market, and if you look at the figures of the last three quarters of 2023 and compare this with the last three quarters of 2024, we were at EUR 1.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2024. That's about EUR 2 billion. And in 2023, we were at EUR 700 million higher. That's EUR 2.7 billion. That applies to the entire German market, DSOs. Romania, that's true. We have an agreement. We concluded an agreement related to the retail business Romania, not the grid business, but the retail business Romania, which was to be sold to the Hungarian operator MVM. This agreement or this plan is subject to the approval processes in Romania and EU. We're still working on getting the approvals together with MVM in order to engage into the approval processes.
It will certainly take some months until we have some news for you about this transaction. What was the other question, Mr. Steitz? Could you please ask your third question or the first one? Was it the second one? The second one. How do you see the probability of something happening? Because the federal government has a lot of topics on its agenda and not necessarily return on networks. The way we see it is that network returns are an important topic for the new government. And this was mentioned by the SPD and CDU. Both said that the grid infrastructure requires private capital. And the CDU party also stated that returns on networks should be comparable to other European infrastructure projects, which means that they, Mr. Merz, also referred to that, and I would confirm that as well.
The NESC consultation process of the Federal Network Agency is relevant to us, and it has issued a clear time frame. We welcome that the process is transparent. We welcome that the Federal Network Agency has stuck to the time frame, meaning that by the end of 2025, the methodological framework needs to be completed. In this process, it will also be defined how the return on networks will be calculated for the equity and for the borrowed capital, third-party capital side. The next speaker is Nadine Bös from FAZ, Eva Brandl from Bloomberg, Stefan Schulte from WAZ, and Leonie Wagner from DPA-AFX. Please start, Nadine Bös from FAZ. I have two different questions. The first one relates to the global situation. You mentioned a list of requests for the German government, and we've elected a new government.
How realistic are after the elections and also considering the constellations that we will see, how realistic is a fulfillment of your requests? And the second question relates to the connection requests. This battery storage boom will also lead to a lot of grid connection requests. How are you going to prioritize or structure the requests? What would be the right approach in your opinion? I'm optimistic that a great share of the wish lists will be accepted because these are also the wishes of our customers. They want to get a lot of energy transition for a small amount of money. They don't want to spend a lot of money on very little energy transition. And the changes that I proposed have the purpose of making the energy transition less expensive and affordable for our customers.
And this should be logical, and it's also existential when it comes to competitiveness. We can't reduce energy costs, but increase the cost base for the energy transition exponentially. So that's why I'm optimistic that a lot of topics will be taken up. The proposals that we made are demand-driven, market-driven, cost-focused. There's nothing that's inappropriate. And let us be optimistic. And that would be good news for Germany. It would definitely be good for the energy transition, better than simply continuing the current energy policy. The microphone, sorry. We are overrun with requests for connections with battery storage, battery storage facilities, etc. And very often the request is made that a priority list should be set up. But how are we going to prioritize without building up more bureaucracy? What's the basis? People sometimes say, well, choose these successful or promising projects first. How am I supposed to choose?
If I have a long checklist of things that they have to do before I deal with the projects, then people would say we created too much bureaucracy. But I think there's an easy solution. If it's expensive, if it costs money, the problem is solved by itself. Currently, it doesn't cost money to request for a connection to the grid. It only starts costing money when we start building. If you had to pay a reservation fee for a request for the connection to the grid, which is reimbursed to you, if you don't build, then this reservation fee would be used to pay for this process, then this problem would be solved. If it doesn't cost anything, it's not of value, and you could just make 30 requests. But as soon as requests cost money, it's no longer an issue.
So just let the market work on its own, and I would suggest reservation fees. Thank you very much. We still have three questions in the system. The next one is Eva Brandl from Bloomberg. This is Brandl. Can you hear me? I have a question concerning the grid connection requests and batteries of the 100 gigawatt that you mentioned. What capacity would receive an approval? I thought you would ask how many of the 100 gigawatts would be actually built or are really intended seriously. I would suggest 10%-15%, a maximum of 20%. Each gigawatt has been requested thousands of times.
But whether we give the approval depends where it's going to be built, whether you want to build in the north or the south, or whether you want to store huge amounts, or if you are willing to subject yourself to restrictions of grid operators. I don't know. I can't give you an answer. Second question, you mentioned hybrid warfare and the topic of energy security in Germany and in Europe. What do we have to do in Germany to make sure that energy security is strengthened specifically? Number one, infrastructure, make a contribution. We can make a contribution, and we need to digitalize. There's no alternative. We have to put a strong focus on cyber, but not on reporting on cyber. I'm quite critical about the NIS2 Directive. If everybody reports on its cyber activities, people think that the problem would be solved. That's not true.
We have to rely on our institutional abilities and strengthen them. Fewer authorities that are responsible, but those that are responsible should give big support. If there's a cyber attack, I have to report, and then I have to report what happened, and afterwards, there's an audit, and I'm asked why I didn't prevent this from happening. There's no support. I have to do this with private service providers. It's just like when you call the police and tell them that there's a burglar outside with a machine gun, and then they tell you, why didn't you defend yourself or build up some kind of defense against this? Of course, we have to make a contribution as a company. Authorities have to make a contribution, but that should not consist in giving us more duties to report.
And the last item is, as a company, we have to make sure that this is a task that doesn't only refer to the critical infrastructure. As a company, we have to become more resilient, or as a society as well. We are not prepared for this crisis. We've relied on security being obvious and easy, but it is not. As an energy company, as a government, we have to take action, but also as a society, we have to change our thinking and believe that we as a society have to become more resilient. We can't delegate this to the government or to companies.
Thank you. Then Watts, please. Stefan Schulte. Yeah, good morning. I have two questions. One, Friedrich Merz will probably be the next German chancellor. And back in December, you said we are on the wrong lane, running in the opposite direction in our energy policy.
If I recall what you said, we are going too fast. You gave examples of what should not be subsidized going forward, solar PV on roofs, for example. Last year, there was an additional two gigawatts. I mean, is it right? Is this going too fast for you? Because you are making money in this business segment as well. My second question would be, you said the investments would not be increased for Germany for the time being because it is not clear for the grids how the return on equity will develop. Another question, as an outsider, I would believe that the expansion of the distribution grids should be based on demand, which is apparently huge in Germany. We are not keeping pace apparently here. How do I need to understand your comments that you will not invest here going forward?
I would assume that this is supposed to be pressure on the new government that the energy transition should be shaped the way you want to. Coming to your first question, I basically said we don't need to subsidize what does not require subsidies. And if you invest in a roof PV, then you have two sources of funds. You optimize the grid and you have a return on the feed-in. And the own consumption optimization is what gives you the biggest payback. They will all be paid, all of these 2 million units, which you mentioned, without any subsidies whatsoever. On the contrary, you could even say that if you feed in when negative prices, then you have to pay negative prices as well. So don't drive up all the costs for all the other customers. So I didn't say we shouldn't subsidize.
We shouldn't subsidize unnecessarily because unnecessary subsidies drive costs up. Lindner calculated EUR 10 billion for EEG, and we ended up with EUR 18 billion, I think. It's this kind of increase which we need to limit, so no subsidies where no subsidies are required. Where subsidies are required, yes, of course. I mean, no offshore wind park will be built if we don't subsidize it, but there, subsidize could be switched to gigawatts instead of terawatts as an investment premium, which was already contemplated, and then we would see a much more rational market behavior. If you subsidize terawatt, then the operator will produce whenever, but when you send him into direct marketing and give him an investment premium, he will behave totally differently, and thirdly, I said that it would not make sense to build renewables that don't do anything other than drive up system costs.
Let's take offshore, for example. If we have offshore wind farms off the coasts that are so closely to each other that they provide wind shadows to each other, then that cannot make sense. That only drives up costs for everyone, so it's not about being more slowly, but driving the energy transition forward in a more sensible way. We don't want to slow it down. It's running and supposed to run, but it's supposed to be meaningful, and the costs are not just to be calculated at the end of the process and be distributed. That way, we cannot be competitive, but the negative prices for private investors, is that a demand you have? Yes, but you could also simply say, if there are negative prices, you should not feed in, and we even need to get people to stop feeding in when there are negative prices.
Otherwise, we will see real system problems going forward. So I'm saying I want meaningful subsidies that don't put too much of a burden on customers. And I expect investors, all of investors, to not sort of get the others to pay for the problems they are producing. If I win or earn money with my PV system or my wind turbine, then I need to take responsibility for the system as well. At the moment, I don't have to because all the costs are socialized. Maybe I can comment on investment here. E.ON has invested EUR 5 billion in Germany in 2024. That's two-thirds of our total investment, which was expanded by EUR 1 billion. And EUR 5 billion is quite a chunk. Very few companies can actually say that they invested EUR 5 billion in this country last year.
Overall, in our last five-year MTP, we had EUR 25 billion for the network expansion in Germany. Now, with the faster depreciation of the gas networks, we've increased that to EUR 26 billion, and yes, you're right. We have a connection responsibility or duty to connect customers, but the Energy Industry Act needs to be complied with, and it calls for a competitive interest. You can imagine 3.5 billion-EUR 5 billion of bonds have to be emitted every five years. Last year, we did 5 billion almost, and for that, I need to attract private capital. I only attract capital where I can offer an attractive return, so all we want is a competitive return. I can only support what Nadia just said. It's not about building up pressure. We cannot invest billions and also refinance. You have to refinance that money.
If we don't get the return, then we simply have to invest less. Okay, thank you for that. And a brief comment on the rules of procedure. It's 1:11 P.M. now. We've got three questions on our list, which I'd like to hear. Ms. Wagner, Ms. Haas, and Ms. Ecko, who's joined us virtually. And for everyone to have an opportunity, we can take one further question after that. And then I would like to close today's press conference, if that's okay. Ms. Wagner, please. Thank you. I hope you can hear me. Apparently, you can. Yes. So we've heard a lot now about political and regulatory framework conditions. I'd like to briefly come back to the economic environment. What does it mean for E.ON that Germany's economy is so weak at the moment? How much headwind does this result in the current business year 2025?
Secondly, what is your take on the proposal that's apparently been made that the gas levels in the storage facilities should be reduced from 90% to 80%? Okay. German economy, the numbers which we are showing are relatively robust, even in the difficult environment which we have. We've had five years of Corona, three years of energy crisis, three years of Ukraine war. We also met or exceeded the guidance. And we will do that in 2025 as well, even in a difficult environment. But of course, for an infrastructure provider who invests EUR 5 billion in infrastructure in this country every year, I mean, this EUR 5 billion needs to be paid back at some point. And so therefore, it's good for the country to be strong economically. So the headwind is not reflected in the numbers, as you saw in the previous years as well.
But it's important for us that our company is well off, and we are citizens of this country, and we want this country to be well off. That way, we can drive the transition in a much better way. So the headway is more in the political discussion, the affordability discussion, not the numbers. Oh, gas storage levels. Yeah. Against discussing these mechanisms in public. Whenever this is discussed in public, then the market optimizes itself. Of course, we have regulation in the market at the moment, which means that nobody has an incentive to inject gas into storage. And that needs to change. And how this can be done? Well, you should do it immediately in one step, in a surprise step, and then the market will respond immediately. Then. That's for me. Two brief questions for my understanding.
One, when I look at your financial KPIs for the group net profit, we had a real jump for the EBIT, EUR 6 billion, and then EUR 760 million for the net income. We don't have that this year. How come? The main KPI is the adjusted net income. So it's adjusted. What you are referring to is the group net income. And this group net income includes the derivative valuation of our commodity contracts as well. So the EUR 760 million last year included a negative effect of some EUR 4 billion from the market valuation, which has developed in the other direction this year. That's why it's higher in this year. And in future years, since we've grown out of the energy crisis, we don't expect to see that high fluctuations in the group net income from the market valuation.
It's very distorting, and therefore, we adjusted in our adjusted net income, which is EUR 2.9 billion this year, and was slightly above that last year. Sorry, we didn't hear the question. We have our customers, which we supply with power and gas, and then we do a forecast, and we purchase this early on. According to legislation and accounting, I will have to check on the 31st of December what the valuation of these contracts is on that particular day. And that can lead to these fluctuations. Then another question. Coming back to the smart meters. You said, Mr. Birnbaum, that you have installed 500,000, and the target is 1 million for this year. How many electricity meters do you have overall? 15 million. Is that correct? Well, I need to check up on those numbers, to be honest. Group wide, do I have it here?
No, I don't. There's only the German ones. The German would be 15 million. We've got 40 million households in Germany. If we have 1 million, the rest of the market, half a million, then you see where we stand. We are still below 5% of penetration. So we have more than 500,000, roughly 600,000. By the end of the year, we want to have 1 billion. That makes us by far the market leader here. I mentioned the numbers, but for the whole group, a lot more. It'll be a two-digit million figure, even though Germany is by far our leading market, and that shows how slow the rollout is in Germany. I would recommend go to Mr. Feger over there in the bistro. He will show you the smart meter, and it's really nice to talk to a technician.
I learn a lot talking to him, and you learn a lot talking to him. He's got exciting stories to tell, and then you'll understand why we are below 1 billion here in Germany and not at 10 million. Before we go to the smart meters, there's one last question from Ms. Ecker, who's joined us virtually from Reuters. I hope the link will now work once again and that we can see you. I don't have the camera switched on, but yes, we can hear you. Okay. I wanted to ask about the interplay between the Federal Network Agency and the Economics Ministry because the political situation is now a different one. Do you believe that the interaction will succeed? Because there's this court judgment from 2021, according to which BNetzA has to become more independent going forward.
I've never really seen what this has meant or is supposed to mean. Secondly, this ultimatum, we are putting question marks over the investments. Are you being heard? What kind of framework would you set for yourself? Is there a risk that nothing will happen and you're shooting yourself in the foot, basically, if the planning processes don't pan out the way you expect to? One, we won't get involved in any personnel speculations, but I'm confident that there is a need, both on the ministry side, on the regulator side, and all the other parties who need to make a contribution, that they will react and act in a responsible way. In terms of investment, let me remind you, we've only said we cannot just continue with our investment program up until 2029 in an environment in which we don't have clarity.
We simply cannot do that. The capital market won't allow it. And therefore, we said we only give guidance until 2028. We have got guidance, clarity until then. And again, we are increasing our investments again this year by EUR 1.1 billion. So this is not stagnation. So let me put it again clearly. What we're talking about now is that in the next regulatory period, we need different terms and conditions. Otherwise, we won't be able to meet these numbers. On the contrary, had we the visibility that we don't get it earlier, then we would have to respond, of course. So again, it's simply about a necessity, and it's good to address necessities early and react quickly rather than to say later with your back against the wall and then having to take rash decisions. So our growth path is intact. We are delivering.
We need, however, to keep or continue with this growth path. We need different conditions. And if we do get those, then we will continue to deliver as E.ON. Thank you. And at this point, I would like to close this year's annual press conference. We'd like to say goodbye to the colleagues who've joined us virtually. Thank you for attending. And for the colleagues who are here with us today, it would be nice, as Leon said, if you could continue to be our guest and see Mr. Feger, who can do a little technical presentation. We've also prepared a snack for you. You can stay here and work here. We've got desks for you on the first floor where you continue to work as long as you need to today. So thank you very much again.