Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to our virtual half-year press conference in Essen. I'm delighted to welcome you here today. With me in this room is our CEO, Leonhard Birnbaum, our CFO, Nadia Jakobi, who will provide you with an update on our figures for the half-year. Afterwards, you will have the opportunity to ask your questions. With this, I would like to pass the floor to our CEO, Leonhard Birnbaum.
Members of the press, ladies and gentlemen, good morning from me as well. A warm welcome to E.ON's half-year press conference. Today, we are presenting our financial results for the first six months of the year. I'd like to start with two other numbers. First, this year, E.ON turned 25. This anniversary fills us with pride and a sense of responsibility. Considering our predecessor company, VEBA, we were even included in the DAX executives 60 years ago this week. Second, today marks exactly 100 days since Germany's new federal government took office, and it was accompanied by ambitious promises, including on energy policy. This is what I want to talk about briefly before I present the numbers. 25 years is a relatively short period of time for a corporation, but it is long in an energy world that has changed fundamentally.
That's why, over the last 10 years in particular, we have successfully realigned our business by spinning off our conventional generation businesses to create Uniper in 2016, by reconfiguring our nuclear waste disposal obligations in 2016 and 2017, by integrating Energy's network and retail business, and transferring our global renewables between 2018 and 2020 in the post-merger integration, and the transfer of the global renewables business in 2020 and 2021 to RWE. Today, we are no longer a power generator. We are fully focused on the backbone of the energy transition, energy infrastructure, and customer solutions. That's where we want to be Europe's playmaker. It is where the energy transition success will be decided today. That's why our business model is working. That's why E.ON's ambitious growth strategy positions us well. Our planned investments of EUR 43 billion up until 2028, the figure you will already know.
For us, being a playmaker also means actively participating in the political debates. Our preliminary conclusion after the first 100 days is that many topics have been addressed right, and now it's time to focus on implementation. I'd like to emphasize the positives. First, the clear commitment not to an energy transition at any price, but to an effective and efficient energy transition. Sustainability needs to be accompanied by cost efficiency and security of supply, and that requires a fresh start also to strengthen Germany's competitiveness again. Second, the intention to monitor and needs-based energy system planning. Avoiding unnecessarily large generating and network capacity requires periodic reality checks rather than rigid policy targets. Third, tangible efforts to be more pragmatic. One example of this is starting to build new gas-fired power generation instead of endlessly discussing the right target figure.
Also noteworthy is the effort to reduce bureaucracy, and this includes demonstrating greater courage to be innovative and open to new technologies. After the summer legislative break, it will be important for the government to translate these positive signals into as many specific actions as possible. A willingness to draw conclusions from monitoring will be crucial. Build only what's really needed. If actual demand turns out to be lower than the planning numbers, this needs to have consequences. This applies to electricity as well as to hydrogen, and it's completely independent of the fact that in the vast majority of the cases, electrification is the cheapest way to achieve climate targets. Build in what? Build in a way that minimizes system costs. The costs are the biggest driver for end-user prices.
Why is it still possible for renewables to be built where there is no demand and the grid is already at its limit? When will the technology neutral capacity market be implemented with flexibility? When will the construction of backup power plants begin? Dramatically reduce subsidies, that's what we also need to address. Why are capacities subsidized that are not needed and technologies that have long been economically viable? Why are energy storage devices given a blanket exemption from grid fees, even though many of these devices don't relieve the burden on the grids and increase the costs for customers? Focus on flexibility. How can we leverage the enormous potential of flexibility to save customers' money and enhance the security of supply? E.ON is ready to offer its expertise to help move things forward.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're doing everything we can to drive the energy transition ourselves, and this is reflected in our financial figures as well. We recorded an adjusted group EBITDA of EUR 5.5 billion and an adjusted group net income of EUR 1.9 billion in the first half of 2025. This is a seamless continuation of our strong first-quarter performance and puts us right on track to achieve our full-year 2025 guidance. This is down to our employees' hard work. It's not a given. A big thank you for your great work in the first six months of this year. E.ON, by the way, was named the best employer for people aged 16 - 34 in the U.K. by the Sunday Times this year. This shows how attractive E.ON is as an employer.
It shows how attractive it is to drive forward the energy transition as a key player for young people and basically for anyone who really wants to make a difference. Also, the driver of the energy transition, we continued heavily in the first half of this year. The EUR 3.5 billion we invested once again reached a new benchmark and represents a further increase compared to the prior year period. Most of our investments continue to go toward our energy networks business. This is because we're working hard to expand our networks, for example, to supply the power to the factories of six major automotive manufacturers in Slovakia and to connect a growing number of large and small PV systems in the Czech and Hungary, and in Bavaria, which already has 28 GW of installed PV and almost as much as Spain's 32 GW.
We are also already at work today to procure what we need to expand and modernize our networks. We launched a large-scale procurement initiative in the first half of the year by concluding more than EUR 6 billion in long-term contracts with leading European manufacturers to supply us with technical equipment like transformers. This benefits not only the energy transition, but also Europe's component supply industry. In the first half of the year, we reached another milestone in digitization as well. Since this summer, our German power grid, approximately 700,000 km long, has a digital twin that already maps 55 million components. One thing the twin enables us to do is to evaluate connection requests just in a few seconds. This makes our network expansion even more efficient for our customers. Our rollout of smart meters is making progress too.
By the end of the first half of 2025, we installed more than 750,000 smart meters, and we will reach a million early next year, more than other meter operators in the country. That's despite the fact that the rollout in Germany remains expensive, complicated, and bureaucratic. Yet, we are demonstrating how to get it done. This reinforces our view that the rollout in Germany should be entrusted exclusively to network operators, and that the superfluous role of the competitive metering point operator should be abolished. Digital infrastructure is playing an increasingly important role in our business and other aspects as well. Data centers, a new digital backbone for Germany's economy, is currently being created, and we are helping to build it. Data centers, which together consume more than 1 GW of power, are already connected to our networks today.
We are connecting 5 GW at the moment, and on top, we have connection requests for more than 50 GW. That's all in addition to the consistently high number of connection requests for renewables and batteries. Data centers are also becoming increasingly important for our Energy Infrastructure Solutions business. In June, we started into a strategic partnership with CyrusOne, a leading global provider of state-of-the-art high-performance data centers. Data centers not only have the high power requirements, but also have to comply with increasingly stringent energy efficiency regulations. We have the right solutions for them, such as waste heat utilization or on-site power generation. We also help our private customers become players in the energy transition. They're increasingly interested in flexibility and flexible tariffs.
This is despite the fact that we are nowhere near being able to leverage the full potential of flexibility because of the slow smart meter rollout in Germany. The full potential is already considerable. By 2025, German households could achieve nearly 15.6 TWh, and that would be the equivalent of four million four-person households in Germany. By 2030, this figure could even be double. There is potential. You see, in our anniversary year, E.ON is looking ahead positively to the future. Yet, it must also be clear to everyone that the energy transition will require billions in private capital in the upcoming years. We can therefore discuss many levers for a better energy transition, but Germany's future network regulation is the elephant in the room. What will network regulation look like? We are much more critical here because the Federal Network Agency's draft determinations actually risk hindering Germany's energy transition.
Why? Because the return on equity on future network investments is far too low by international standards. Because network operators now also face a host of additional regulatory hurdles relating to network costs. Because despite the positive signals, network operators are therefore left with lower earnings despite increased investment needs. Let's start with investments. Unless the ROE, return on investment, is competitive internationally, private investment will not flow into Germany's networks, but into other countries. The United Kingdom, for example, is currently introducing target regulatory incentives. The U.K. regulator's proposals foresee a nominal ROE of around 8% after taxes, and other countries like Poland and the Czech Republic already reward network investments with appropriate returns. Germany, too, urgently needs an ROE that reflects investors' expectations. This is a nominal ROE of 8% after taxes. Our multibillion euro investment program relies on long-term debt financing as well.
Surprisingly, the Federal Network Agency's latest proposals foresee a fixed return on debt based on the average interest rate of the last seven years. In other words, the calculation of the return includes a period of historically low interest rates, and it excludes any adjustments. This will artificially lower the regulatory return on debt. To illustrate that, if you were to take out a 4% loan and then invest that money at 3%, that is what we would then have to do. If you do that, or you want to do that, can we do it? No, of course not. E.ON's billions of investments each year are exposed to enterprise risk, but we can't do that at any price. We can only do this if the return on equity and debt is worthwhile. The same applies to the regulatory framework for additional network costs.
Here, the Federal Network Agency proposes various changes that penalize network operators like E.ON that are particularly committed to promoting the energy transition in their region. I'd like to highlight three key points here. First, alongside various methodological changes, the agency proposes shortening the efficiency benchmark period to three years and significantly increasing the size of each benchmark group. That the agency hasn't yet conducted a comprehensive impact assessment for this study is particularly worrisome. The result is that efficient network operators risk being classified as inefficient because their peer group is expected to include a large number of non-comparable network operators. The benchmark's result won't be available until 2028, and this creates a lot of planning uncertainty for network operators. That means from a business perspective, every network operator would have to immediately start, as a precautionary measure, doing everything it can to reduce personnel and costs.
For the ongoing implementation of the energy transition, this would be completely counterproductive because the demand is increasing. Second, the agency now wants the efficiency benchmark to factor in redispatch costs. This sounds harmless. This would especially impact distribution network operators whose networks have integrated lots of PV and wind power plants. Three E.ON subsidiaries, Avacon, Bayernwerk, and EDIS, account for more than 60% of all redispatch costs in Germany's distribution networks last year. This is because Germany still provides blanket subsidies to new renewables facilities, some of which are even built in regions where the renewables feed in already often exceed annual peak load. This results in redispatch costs that are beyond the local network operator's control. The efficiency benchmark, however, is only supposed to factor in control of all costs. Otherwise, you are penalized.
Third, in the upcoming regulated period, it is not supposed to have any inflation adjustment for two of the five years. Consequently, we have inflation every year, but these added costs can only be recouped to a certain extent, and this reduces the return. We therefore urge the Federal Network Agency to listen to the network operators' objective arguments, which are all on the table with an open mind. We remain positive and continue to place our faith in the common will and understanding of all stakeholders. After all, the energy industry, the Federal Network Agency, and the policymakers ultimately want the same thing: a functioning and affordable transition. This can only be achieved with private investment. That can only happen with a future-oriented regulatory system. With that, I'll now hand things over to Nadia.
Thank you very much, Leo, and good morning to you all. I would now like to give you a closer look at our financial performance in the first half of 2025. I'll start with three key messages. First, E.ON again delivered strong operating and financial results. The adjusted group EBITDA amounted to EUR 5.5 billion, adjusted group net income to EUR 1.9 billion. This represents year-over-year increases of 13% and 10%, respectively, compared to the previous year. Second, our investments were again a key driver of our earnings growth. We are consistently pursuing our growth path. Therefore, we increased our investments in the first half of the year by 11% compared to the prior year period to EUR 3.2 billion. Third, we reaffirm our guidance for the current fiscal year, as well as our outlook for 2028, including our dividend policy.
For 2025, we continue to expect adjusted group EBITDA in a range of EUR 9.6 billion- EUR 9.8 billion. We currently expect our earnings to be at the upper end of the guidance range by the end of the year, driven by temporary value-neutral effects in our energy networks business. We expect our full-year adjusted group net income to be in the middle of our guidance range of EUR 2.85 billion- EUR 3.05 billion. We intend to increase adjusted group EBITDA to more than EUR 11.3 billion by 2028. I'll now turn to our segment's adjusted EBITDA performance in the first half of the year. Our largest segment, energy networks, recorded a significant earnings increase. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 4.0 billion, which is around 20% above the prior year figure of EUR 3.3 billion. This positive performance is primarily attributable to accelerated investments to expand, modernize, and digitalize network infrastructure.
As already mentioned, temporary value-neutral effects led to additional earnings contributions, which, in line with regulatory requirements, are being made up for from previous years or will be passed through to our customers over time. Our energy retail's adjusted EBITDA declined slightly year- over- year by around EUR 100 million - EUR 1.3 billion. After a strong start to the year, the second quarter saw normalization effects relating, among others, to the weather. The first quarter was relatively cold. The second quarter was warm and sunny. This led to declining sales volume in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, among other countries. In addition, as expected, margins in our B2B and B2C business in the United Kingdom declined, as in particular, more private customers switched to fixed-price contracts. Overall, we are on track. Our energy retail segment will achieve its full-year targets.
Our Energy Infrastructure Solutions segment significantly grew its adjusted EBITDA in the first half of the year to around EUR 330 million. Year- over- year, that's an increase of more than 30%. Weather-driven volume effects, the commissioning of new projects, and better asset availability, particularly in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, were the main factors. The consistent implementation of our investment program continued as well. In the first six months alone, E.ON invested EUR 3.2 billion. This represents a year-over-year increase of more than EUR 300 million. We're planning to invest a total of around EUR 8.6 billion in our network and customer solutions businesses in the current fiscal year. These investments will not only drive the energy transition forward, they also lay the foundation for future earnings growth. Investments in our Energy Networks segment in the first half of the year totaled more than EUR 2.5 billion, a significant year-over-year increase of EUR 400 million.
These investments consisted of a large number of individual projects to expand, modernize, and digitalize our network infrastructure in our regions. In energy retail, we invested about EUR 220 million. This included, among other things, the expansion of our Europe-wide e-mobility charging infrastructure, digital infrastructure for flexibility solutions, and tariffs for our customers, and expanding our digital customer offerings. Energy Infrastructure Solutions invested around EUR 350 million, primarily to provide sustainable energy solutions to support our B2B customers' decarbonization journeys. As you can see, being a playmaker in the energy transition involves investing billions every year, mostly in our Energy Networks business. For example, in 2024, about 70% of our network investments, that's more than EUR 4 billion in total, were in Germany. As Leonhard Birnbaum explained, our investments need to create value.
The Federal Network Agency's current draft determinations don't yet indicate the financial conditions that will be put in place that are internationally competitive enough to attract additional private investments. The Federal Network Agency needs to continue to ensure an appropriate return on capital. Ladies and gentlemen, we delivered a successful first half of the year and again reaffirmed our clear growth trajectory for the years ahead. Our investments and consistent operational implementation remain a basis for creating added value for our customers and investors. I would like to pass the floor to Lars Rosumek for your questions.
Nadia, Leo, thank you very much for your presentations. Now I'd like to open the Q&As. You know that, as usual, I would like you to raise the hand in Teams, and I can already see a few hands. When I call your name, please switch on your camera so we can see you here in the room. The first question comes from Christoph Steitz from Reuters. Mr. Steitz, please. Right. Let's see if I can switch on the camera, and now we can see you. Good morning. I have a few questions, Mr. Birnbaum. One question concerning your ongoing investment program. How firm is it? Will a readjustment be required if the regulatory environment doesn't improve, or is that fixed? Might you spend capital elsewhere? That then leads me to my second question. Your share price has developed quite well since the start of the year.
It's gone up by 40%. The investors appear to like your strategy and support your strategy. Let me ask you directly. Share buybacks, to what extent is that an option for you to create value for shareholders going forward? This is something you haven't done to a great extent up until now. As part of this capital allocation question, other companies look at this option as well, and I'd like to hear your opinion on this. That would be great, thanks. Yeah. First of all, concerning the ongoing investments, let me say that there are two influential factors there. One is the absolute need, the absolute demand. We are just as excited as you are and looking forward to the result of this monitoring process. My prediction would be that the absolute demand will be lower than the current plans, as I said in my speech.
That will not have any impact on the expansion needs at E.ON. It might affect renewables, but not networks. Why? We still have some catching up to do, as we see from the many bottlenecks we already have today. We need to continue investing, and we are seeing continued demand and requests from customers. We do not assume that the investment program during this regulatory period until 2028 will be affected in any way. It's important to say when we talk about regulation, we talk about regulation with the regulatory period where it starts in 2029 until 2034. Up until 2028, we have a fully financed strategy for our networks. Much on that. The growth perspective is unlimited. Now, your second question, share buyback.
I don't want to speculate as to what poor regulation would mean because our logic is that we focus on providing or receiving adequate regulation that allows us to continue our growth path, which is important for our shareholders, but also for the energy transition and also for our customers. If we achieve that, that question won't come up because then we will continue on our growth path as we have done in the last few years so successfully. That met with the approval from the investors. Commenting on the 40% you just mentioned, yes, the price has gone up well, but part of the truth is also that in Q4, when the uncertainty in Germany was relatively high and we had a negative court judgment on regulation, the price went down.
Had you taken another point in time 12 months ago, we would have been much closer to the normal market development. Thank you. The next question from Catiana Krapp from Handelsblatt. Ms. Krapp, please. Thank you. Good morning. I have another question to add to what Mr. Steitz asked. If the results of the monitoring process are not so important for how you will invest in the coming years, why are the results relevant to you at all? You have already explained that you can't wait to see the results of this monitoring process and that it might show that the market is oversized or overdimensioned. Maybe you can comment on that. My second question would be the premiers of the northern German federal states are calling on Germany to, or calling for Germany to be subdivided into several energy price zones. What's your take on that?
A nice article on the monitoring you wrote. Congratulations on that. One thing is how important is monitoring for E.ON's investment planning. That's one question. The more important question is how important is it for our customers' bills. Monitoring has a huge impact on our customers' bills. Therefore, it's also relevant for us, even if it doesn't change our expansion needs. Let me give you an example here. What can happen, or the outcome could be, for example, that the hydrogen demand will ramp up much slower than assumed up until now. If the hydrogen demand ramp up is low, then we need less renewables. If we need less renewables, particularly, and build less renewables in areas where we only produce bottlenecks and redispatch, then we have fewer costs for our customers. That will not have any impact on E.ON.
The monitoring is important for the energy transition as a whole. I believe it's a good idea to simply do a fact check and to think, are the assumptions, or wonder whether the assumptions we had five years ago are still the right ones. It's important for the customers, but it doesn't affect our growth perspective in the networks because we have so much catching up to do, as you can tell from all the bottlenecks. As far as electricity price zones are concerned, that's an evergreen topic that comes up again and again. The industry is very clear here. There was an investigation at the European level as to what advantages this would provide. Five zones would mean EUR 320 million in benefits. It's not worth doing it from that perspective.
My second answer is I'm in two minds here concerning this discussion because if we subdivide Germany, we reduce the liquidity in the wholesale markets. It'll become more difficult for us to sell fixed-price products to our customers because we have less liquid markets, which would lead to cost increases for our customers. Ultimately, even in northern Germany, you need to think carefully what we want. When they say we want lower electricity prices up in the north, then the answer of the people in the south would be then bear all of the network charge. Why should we assume your offshore network costs if we don't have a benefit from it? This would open a discussion which, to be honest, wouldn't lead us anywhere. Thank you, Ms. Krapp, for your questions. The next question is from Börsen-Zeitung. Mrs. Becker, please. Good morning. I have two questions left.
I would like to know why your adjusted group EBITDA was declined so much for the half year. I'd like to look at your debt. I haven't heard how high the leverage is, but you are sort of coming into regions that might be cause for concern. Nadia, maybe you can answer that one. Yes. Let me start with this second question. No, we are not entering difficult territory concerning our debt because we have the debt factor. How much of the EBITDA can we afford as an economic net debt? That was 4.5 at the end of last year. We are measuring that for the full year only because this is the right matching to do. We are fully on track there. Our balance sheet headroom of EUR 5 billion- EUR 10 billion is unchanged, as we have communicated. Our investment program, which we have confirmed today, is fully financed.
There's still some headroom to invest in the future as well. The adjusted net income, the adjusted income can't be looked at on a quarterly basis, really. As you can see, our adjusted net income increases by 10% compared to the same period last year. A half year to a half year, we are fully on track. There have been slight shifts between depreciations and interests, which behave differently to the margin development. Depreciation is flat. Margin development is affected by seasonal factors. You should look at the whole picture for the half year. Thank you, Nadia. Oh, sorry, can I ask one more question? Yes, go ahead. I can, from other companies, have a rolling 12-month EBITDA and use that as a yardstick. Okay, I give you an outlook now. As I said, the EBITDA, I mean, we don't earn the same in every single quarter.
When our rating agency judges, they look at the results for the full year. Our outlook, our guidance for our economic net debt up until the end of the year is just below EUR 44 billion. You can link that to the EUR 9.6 billion- EUR 9.8 billion of EBITDA. If you then divide it, you'll see that it's roughly the same order of magnitude as at the end of last year. Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Becker. We have two further questions. One from dpa-AFX, Ms. Wagner, and Mr. Wiedemann from Tagesspiegel. Ms. Wagner, please, first. Good morning, Ms. Wagner. Hello and good morning. I'd like to focus on two questions. One concerning the regulatory period, the fifth regulatory period. The consultation process is over. How much potential do you still see there?
Maybe you can also give us a calculation example concerning your equity capital return: 1% up, 1% down. What would that mean? What would be the consequences for E.ON? Secondly, very specific for this report, the changed customer behavior in the U.K., fixed-price contracts you have there. Do you see a trend there, or do you expect the customers to return into higher margin contracts? I'd like to hear your views on that as well. Thank you. Okay, let me comment on the fifth regulatory period, Ms. Wagner. I wouldn't want to speculate now as to where and how the negotiations are progressing. The facts are on the table. The consultation process isn't over. We have submitted our comments. The industry has submitted our comments.
These comments are now being discussed, and then the Federal Network Agency will form its opinion and come up with a decision, which we'll then discuss again. It will become binding at some point in time. It is not that the consultation is over and everything is on the table and we have to live with it. That is not the situation. It is still an ongoing process, which will end sometime at the end of the year or early next year and provide results by then. The second thing is we are still optimistic that the outcome at the end will be something that's acceptable. We criticize what's on the table, and we voiced our opinion very clearly. We will discuss this in an appropriate way with the Federal Network Agency, and this will then produce a result. We all have the same objective.
The politicians, regulators, and the energy suppliers want affordable, efficient energy transition for the customers. We are seeing that on the political side with the monitoring process, on the regulator side, and on our side as well. At the end, I believe we will achieve a solution that will make that possible. Fundamentally, I'm still optimistic, not opportunistic, but optimistic, despite many of the critical points I mentioned. You asked about a quantification. I wouldn't want to quantify this because there are many influential variables going into different directions. Let me say one thing. The return on equity is discussed a lot, and it's cheap. If you look at what it would cost for all network operators to get more 100 basis points of return on equity, that is marginal compared to the bottlenecks we've created by not creating too much infrastructure. Let's not speculate there.
At the end of the day, the facts are on the table. There is the joint will, and therefore, I assume that we will come to an acceptable solution.
Then we still had the question concerning customers in the U.K. Customer development in the U.K. is nothing unusual for us. In the current market, our competitors are also seeing changes from standard variable tariffs to fixed-price tariffs. Currently, we're still above the level that we saw before the crisis. As far as the standard variable tariff customers are concerned, we welcome the fact that customers are dealing with the topic of energy. We anticipated that in our outlook. This is not a new trend to us, but it's something that we consider to be a typical normalization that we also included and anticipated in our outlook. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wagner. Next, please, Karsten Wiedemann from Tagesspiegel. Thank you. I have two questions. Number one, concerning the area of grid expansion and what you are doing at E.ON or will have to do, the connection procedures.
The criticism was voiced that the distribution system operators of E.ON were not that fast with regard to network access or connection procedures. Where do you think that you have some more homework to do so that this part that you were responsible for can be accelerated and could be more digital at the end of the day? The second item concerning security of supply/gas-fired power plants. At the beginning, you said that you were optimistic with regard to what is happening in the Ministry of Economics. Why are you hopeful in the area of gas-fired power plants? Why do you think more will happen? Up to date, we have only seen announcements, and we don't really know whether gas-fired power plants will be built or decided on quickly by the end of this year. This has just been an announcement, and we don't see anything happening, really.
Let me start with the gas-fired power plants. I said that I am perceiving the attempt as being positive, the attempt of starting with 5 GW first. I said it all depends on what we're doing after the summer break, whether the positive indications can really be translated into action. You're right when you say that words are cheap, action is what counts. That's why we believe that gas-fired power plants will definitely be needed. It is the right thing to do to discuss this. I don't understand the debate in general. Why do we have to analyze for three years whether it's 4.1 GW or 14.4 GW or 10 GW? Just start with the 5 GW and another 5 GW. As soon as we've finished with the 10 GW, we'll have to see whether we need another 10 GW. We cannot plan the future.
We should just start by doing something on a step-by-step basis. After the first step, we'll see whether we can take the next one instead of understanding all 95 steps before you even start making the first one. That's why I appreciate that Ms. Reiche has said, "We'll just start." Mr. Habeck said 23 GW. She said up to 20 GW. I would say just start with the first five. We need those definitely, and then we'll see. That also applies in other areas. Sometimes it makes sense to first make one step and then revisit the whole decision. That's why we suggest that monitoring should be repeated every two years so that we can still check and verify whether our assumptions are still valid. Now, with regard to grid expansion or grid connection, that was your question, really. Network operators or DSOs receive 300,000 requests for connection.
We are overwhelmed by such requests. In those areas where we have a digital system, we can work on them in about 24 hours. It doesn't work when we are faced with bottlenecks. If we're in a bottleneck situation, we'll have to check what options we have for a connection because the automated systems, because of those bottlenecks, give you a no answer. Because we see more and more bottlenecks, we have more and more cases in which we cannot give a quick answer. Those are the cases that will have to be worked on. From my perspective, this is something that's very comprehensible. Of course, we try to help our customers, give a solution to our customers as quickly as possible. Although network congestion exists, it's not always possible to give a quick answer. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Wiedemann. Now we have questions.
Nadine Bös, FHZ, Reinhard Kowalewsky from Rheinische Post, and finally, Mr. Patka from Energate. Ms. Bös, please. Thank you very much. I have a question concerning the current debate on the feed-in tariff of private solar systems, roof-mounted systems. What is your opinion on Ms. Reiche's suggestion? We've also heard a lot about delayed payments. Westnetz was also affected by that. How overwhelmed are you or what happened, really? I would like to repeat what I said over the past months. If not now, when shall we start to work with subsidies? I said that for roof-mounted PV systems, the main earnings are using the electricity yourself, reducing overall costs by using the electricity that you consume. Fixed feed-in accounts for just one-fourth of the overall value. This won't fall away completely, but it would be reduced.
My personal opinion is that it's right to discuss the ban or the elimination of this subsidy. I think it's a good idea. If we don't do it now, when do we still want to pay subsidies for technologies that don't need subsidies for the next 20 years? It would be better if the PV industry would develop in a way that it does not need subsidies. In my opinion, that is definitely possible. That's the right debate. The headwind just simply has to be come to terms with. You always get headwind when something is taken away from you. In Germany, many people get a lot. That's why you always are faced with headwind. Now the topic on payments. Our subsidiary Westnetz was faced with problems. That's true. 200,000 connection requests were received over the past two years. At Westnetz, we have an additional problem.
Our entire IT system had to be changed. The meter-to-cash system had to be changed. Additional increases of connections, plus the need of changing the overall IT system, led to delay, which we expressly deplore. Of course, we've taken counteraction, additional resources, and down payments given to our customers. We do hope that we will come to terms with this problem. The combination of further growth, plus the need of this major IT project, has led to a situation where we didn't live up to our expectations and weren't able to deliver what our customer wanted. Next question is from Reinhard Kowalewsky from Rheinische Post. Mr. Kowalewsky, good morning. Good morning. I understand the gas topic as follows. You're saying that Ms. Reiche apparently wants to build a lot of gas-fired power plants and that the Greens think that this is completely exaggerated.
You showed the charts on the flexibility solutions and the private customers and the possibility to shift load to them. In Essen-Werden, when the sun is shining, I switch on the washing machine because I think that a lot of solar power is available. It doesn't help me financially, but it seems to make sense. Why is there no app developed by E.ON which customers can use, although they don't have a digital meter? With this app, they could find out when it makes sense to switch on machines or appliances that are flexible. Does such an app exist? Now, as far as gas power plants are concerned, I've always said that I think this debate is exaggerated. We had a Green Minister of Economics who planned 20 GW of hydrogen power plants, gas power plants that should be changed to hydrogen at some stage.
Now we still don't have, haven't built the first gas-fired power plant, not even one. Now we're talking about just building a few. The debate apparently believes that the whole of Germany will be covered with fossil fuels. No, let's just make one step first and then continue with the second one. Before everything, we have too many fossil fuels. We'll see what the status is. We need more pragmatism, fewer emotions. It's important to believe that we can't plan all the details for the next 10 years. We should be calmer. We should be more composed. That would do good. A lack of composure is sometimes also planned because you don't want to engage in debates that you don't want to have. So much for gas. The second question related to the app.
It's nice that you are adapting your load behavior, although you don't have any commercial incentive to do so. If you are looking at the share price, you can see that. You can see when you look at the spot price what is happening. You don't even need an app for that. We have apps for share prices, but what you are doing without really having any personal advantage without a smart meter can be done if you look at the wholesale spot prices. Whenever they're negative, you should switch on your washing machine. Your network would be grateful for that. Why can't you advertise that? We can only translate that into the business once a smart meter has been installed. When we do that, we can account for your change behavior. The only thing we could advertise is you're doing something good, but don't have a benefit.
It would be good if you do something for the system and you have a financial benefit. That's the smart meter here that you can use for that. Flexible tariffs are being offered and are being accepted by customers. However, penetration in the market because of the low penetration of smart meters is still very low in general. That's the main point of criticism. That's why I've mentioned smart meters time and again. The bad rollout of smart meters in Germany has made it difficult for us to make such attractive offers to the market to a wide extent. Thank you very much for this answer. We still have three questions.
Mr. Patka from Energate, Mr. Driessen from Montel, and Ms. Brendel from Bloomberg. Mr. Patka first, please. Good morning. Hello and good morning, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask some questions. I'd like to keep my camera switched off so I don't use as much bandwidth. I'd like to come back to the investment topic. Mr. Birnbaum, back in February, you said that E.ON's investment for the regulatory period from 2029 onwards cannot be judged at all because you don't know what the regulatory environment will look like. That's an important variable for investments.
Now, we've moved on half a year, and I'd like to know whether anything has already changed from your perspective or whether anything has transpired that would cause you to look at your investment budget once again, or can you only really say what kind of investments you want to make after the decisions have been made by the agency? Okay, maybe I can answer that one. You have rightly said that at the moment we are in the consultation phase. What we said for the full year was that we would, first of all, wait for the finalization of this consultation process and look at the draft decisions or the final decisions which we expect by the end of the year if the regulator sticks to his timetable.
Once we've seen those and once all of this has happened, we can comment for the full year 2025 in February 2026. What we can say at the moment is based on, we need certain visibility as to what the future regulatory system will look like. We haven't got enough visibility as yet to be able to say how we can invest from 2029 onwards. Thank you. Mr. Driessen from Montel, please. Good morning, everyone. Quick question concerning network connections. You mentioned the data centers earlier that need to be connected as well. There are first attempts in some areas to use repetition and to subdivide the scarce capacities. That means that big utilizers may go elsewhere because they do not get enough capacity. What's your take on that, the scarcity? Very good question. The answer is, we cannot provide a blanket answer here.
We have certain focus regions where the situation is very tight, particularly in the Frankfurt area. In that area, we have almost any number of data center requests which we cannot fulfill in the near term. As I said in my speech, at the moment, we have outstanding requests of some 50 GW, more than 400 requests in total. You can calculate what the average is. 250 MW per request. That shows that we are receiving massive requests. At the moment, we have 50 data center projects which we are connecting with a total of 5 GW, so on average 100 MW. The tail end is becoming bigger and more. There are two problems here. One is, can I administer this situation and give everyone 5 MW? That will not help anyone. The question is, do I give everything to the first requester?
That first person could actually demand the capacity without actually using it. We need to think about queue management. Whose turn is it and in which sequence? How can we ensure that somebody simply profits from the network capacity being scarce? The important thing is that you have to pay for securing options. If it's cheap to fill the queue, then that is exactly what will happen. There will be a lot of speculation. It's a very difficult subject to handle. We're trying it as best we can. I think the solution that's being discussed that everyone will get a little is that will probably mean that nobody can really be helped. We need more intelligent answers, more intelligent solutions within the industry, and also discuss them with politicians and the regulator. Thank you for the question and the answer. We have one last question here in the system.
That's Eva Brendel from Bloomberg. Ms. Brendel, good morning. Hello, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask my question. I have a situation or question concerning the current situation. We see a lot of heat in some European countries, which means the electricity demand goes up. Do you believe that the increasing demand because of air conditioning systems is kind of overlooked at the moment? Yes, we are seeing more penetration of air conditioning systems in Germany. We started off at a lower level. There are other countries with a much higher level, but we don't see it in power consumption yet. When we look at power consumption, the forecasts are 2% - 3% growth by the end of the decade. Part of that will be air conditioning systems.
When we look at the overall development of electricity demand in the grid, we can't see that at the moment. Maybe the weak economic development seems to overcompensate all other effects. The answer is it will happen, but it's not visible as yet. We of course have the advantage that we have solar production, PV production, but it's more difficult in the winter when there's no wind and no sun and more energy is needed for heating. That will be more of an issue going forward, providing electricity for heat pumps. As Leon said, the gas-fired generation will be needed for these periods to ensure system stability. Air conditioning systems are very friendly in a system that has a lot of PV. Thank you for the extensive explanations. Thank you, Ms. Brendel, for the last question.
We have no further questions in the system, which means we can finish even before 11:00 A.M. Thank you to the two of you for your answers, and thank you to you out there for taking part. The press team will, of course, be available to any further questions you may have during the rest of the day. It's goodbye from Essen. Thank you.