Source: Energy & Management Powernews, January 06, 2022
The rough conditions on the energy market are driving more and more electricity and gas suppliers into bankruptcy. Now it has flushed the companies Enyway and Kehag from the market.
Stormy times in the energy business: at the end of December, the Hamburg-based green power start-up Enyway joined the ever-lengthening list of insolvencies in the utility industry. The subsidiary "Machdasmalanders" is also affected. The network operators Transnet BW, Amprion, Tennet and 50 Hertz terminated the balancing groups, according to a corresponding announcement by the company.
The Hamburg district court has appointed Justus von Buchwalt from the law firm BBL Brockdorff as insolvency administrator. "The explosive increase in wholesale electricity prices at the end of 2021 has economically overwhelmed Enyway, so that the supply service for electricity customers currently had to be discontinued," the law firm informs. Regrettably, the record level of wholesale prices is leading to an increasing number of insolvencies among suppliers of green electricity of all things, says Justus von Buchwaldt. He hopes "to be able to continue enyway's business operations in some areas." An application for insolvency money pre-funding for the 30 employees has already been made.
According to reports, customers who now fall into the substitute supply will not face higher costs. "Our electricity customers do not have to fear any economic losses, as the current rates of the basic supply are currently generally even below the current Enyway tariff," says company founder Heiko von Tschischwitz.
The insolvency also has no impact on "the value of the loans paid in by customers as part of the crowdfunding that took place for a solar plant and a forest project on Borneo." Enyway had only acted as an intermediary, the repayment of the loans including interest will be made at the scheduled time by the issuers, said Tschischwitz, who had founded the green power provider Lichtblick 23 years ago.
Enyway had started in 2017, and with great ambitions. The business idea: to bring together local green energy providers and consumers on a digital platform. The platform relied on blockchain technology.
Even before the price explosion on the procurement markets, the business figures were in the red. In the 2020 financial statements, Enyway reported a net loss of about 6.8 million euros. A year earlier, the deficit was 5.1 million euros. Liabilities amounted to about 8.5 million euros at the end of 2020.
Already in mid-December, there were indications that Oldenburg-based electricity and gas provider Kehag might be pulling the plug. At that time, the company informed its customers that it would cease supplying electricity and natural gas on January 1. At the same time, it terminated the supply relationship as of December 31.
Kehag did not respond to an inquiry from our editorial team as to whether the company was still insolvent. On December 28, according to media reports, an application for insolvency was filed with the Oldenburg District Court. The supplier again did not respond to an inquiry about this by the editorial deadline. Kehag Energiehandel was part of the Kehag Group. The other companies are not to be the subject of the insolvency proceedings.
Author: Manfred Fischer