Further development of markets in Italy, Switzerland and Germany

Sales activities also showed positive growth in the three other key markets in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. In Italy sales of electricity and gas increased year on year by 15 % and 129 % respectively, equivalent to around 4 TWh of electricity and 125 million cubic meters of gas. 32,000 customers buy their electricity from Repower and 7,000 are supplied with gas. Customers benefit from innovative products and services and professional support. Repower's efforts in 2010 focused not only on achieving higher volumes, but also on increasing profitability. Evidence of this can be seen in our accomplishments in the fiercely competitive Italian market in this difficult year. Repower has been able to enhance its expertise in electromobility through a partnership with an automotive manufacturer. The partnership entered into in 2010 with the newly formed Swiss center for electric vehicles serves the same purpose in Switzerland.

Further headway was made in building up the German market. Today, Repower has 1,700 customers in this market who purchased 380 GWh more than in the previous year. As mentioned in the report on the Assets Division, Repower now has two wind farms in Germany and interesting projects aimed at further expanding its own generating capacity. This has enabled Repower to reinforce its standing in Germany and increase name recognition.

In Switzerland, Repower continues to serve 75,000 end customers either directly or through resellers. Given the slow pace of market liberalisation, we are concentrating on collaborating with energy suppliers in Switzerland. In the area of end customer support, we came up with a one-off concept for Switzerland, setting up a customer information centre that also sells mobile communication products in Ilanz. In addition, mobile info or “Energy Contact” points were developed in order to foster debate on energy-related issues, primarily in “energy cities” and schools.

2010 was a good hydrological year, with precipitation around 120 % higher than average. Several new large customers signed up for PUREPOWERgraubünden, the high-quality green power.