President and CEO Markus Rauramo:

"For Fortum, 2025 was marked by a strong optimisation premium and solid achieved power price despite low generation volumes. At the end of the year, we updated our long-term financial targets as well as strategic targets and KPIs to ensure value creation from both existing operations and upcoming opportunities. We are confident that electricity demand in the Nordics will grow – driven by data centres, decarbonisation and electrification of industry, and the broader transition to a low-carbon society. With Fortum’s unique position in the Nordics, we are ready to lead that wave.

In 2025, the Nordic power market was characterised by continued strong price volatility. A warm start to the year and the surplus in hydro reservoir levels lowered Nordic spot prices early in the year, especially in the north. Mild weather persisted into the second quarter. Reduced hydro inflows and increased generation soon decreased the surplus, pushing up prices by summer. At the beginning of the third quarter, low rainfall returned hydro reservoirs to average, further supporting prices. In the fourth quarter, Nordic spot prices were higher compared to the previous year due to lower reservoir levels and lower wind speeds. Nordic power demand remained unchanged compared to 2024, primarily sustained by non-industrial consumption, while electricity exports from the Nordic region saw a slight decrease.

Our 2025 financial year comparable result was affected by the decline in the Generation segment’s result. The main reason was lower generation volumes, but also lower hedge power prices had a negative effect. Our nuclear and hydro output was as much as 3.9 TWh below last year’s output, mainly due to the long unplanned outage at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant but also lower hydro inflows. However, our achieved power price of 51.4 EUR/MWh was strong, supported by successful physical optimisation and hedging. The optimisation premium of 9.7 EUR/MWh clearly improved from 2024. The optimisation premium in particular confirms Fortum’s ability to create value from its very competitive outright generation portfolio. In the fourth quarter, the Generation segment’s comparable operating profit declined mainly due to lower hedge prices, partly offset by higher hydro generation. Further, we are very pleased that our Consumer Solutions segment recorded its strongest fourth-quarter and full-year comparable operating profit so far, driven by improved gas and electricity margins and realised cost synergies from the brand mergers completed in 2024. The Other Operations segment also saw an improvement in its comparable result in 2025 due to divestments of non-core businesses carried out the year before.

Our financial position continues to be robust with a leverage for Financial net debt-to-Comparable EBITDA of 1.2 times, and we continued to have sufficient liquidity and credit line buffers at the end of the year. 

Based on our Group results and financial position, Fortum’s Board of Directors is proposing to the Annual General Meeting a dividend of EUR 0.74 per share corresponding to a 90% payout of comparable EPS, in line with Fortum’s dividend policy. Adding the proposed dividend payment to the net debt-to-comparable EBITDA at the end of 2025, it would be 1.7 times.

In 2025, Fortum committed to its SBTi-validated short- and long-term targets and net zero target by 2040, and we will exit coal by the end of 2027. In 2025, 99% of Fortum’s power generation came from renewable (hydro and wind) or nuclear sources, leading to one of the lowest specific CO2 emissions among European utilities. We are proud to announce that in 2025 we already achieved our ambitious targets for specific emissions, both for total energy production and for power generation – reinforcing our position as a climate leader in the industry. In 2025, we also updated our terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity targets, outlined our first biodiversity plan with concrete actions for the upcoming years and published our terrestrial biodiversity footprint for the first time.

In November, we held our Investor Day and updated our strategic targets and KPIs regarding our strategic focus areas: operations, commercialisation and development. Our strategic priorities remained fundamentally the same.

Regarding our strategic priority to deliver reliable energy to our customers, in 2025 we focused on our core operations and advanced several significant projects to even better meet the needs of our customers, the society and the Nordic energy system. At the Loviisa nuclear power plant, the preparations for the lifetime extension until 2050 are advancing well, and we continued the introduction of Western fuel into the plant’s second unit. A significant amount of the fuel load at Loviisa nuclear power plant is now of Western origin. In March, we announced the results of our extensive feasibility study exploring the prerequisites for new nuclear in Finland and Sweden. The study concluded that with the current power market outlook, new nuclear power is not economically viable on a merchant basis only. Fortum will continue to develop new nuclear power as a long-term option to meet projected customer demand growth. Fortum also started a feasibility study to explore possibilities for flexible pumped-storage hydropower in Sweden. In Consumer Solutions, we announced the acquisition of Orange Energia in June, one of the largest independent electricity solutions providers in Poland. The Espoo Clean Heat programme is making significant progress: we have now commissioned our own electrified district heat production at the Espoo and Kirkkonummi data centre sites with future waste heat offtake from the upcoming Microsoft data centres. Additionally, the electricity-powered district heating facility in Nuijala, Espoo, has also begun production. In the fourth quarter, we made the decision to invest EUR 85 million in decarbonisation of our Zabrze CHP plant in Poland, following last year’s similar investment decision in the Czestochowa plant.

On our strategic priority to drive decarbonisation in industries, we have continued to develop several sites across Finland that can be offered to our customers for data centre or industrial use. In addition, we have continued in the role of energy partner to support a feasibility study exploring low-carbon aluminium manufacturing opportunities in Kokkola and Kruunupyy, Finland. In 2025, we also expanded our renewable energy development pipeline through two major onshore wind power portfolio acquisitions in Finland. We secured a 2.6-GW development portfolio from Enersense and a 4.4-GW development portfolio from ABO Energy, bringing our permitting-phase wind and solar pipeline across the Nordics to approximately 8 GW, with more projects in the early development phase.

To ensure competitiveness also in future years, Fortum’s third strategic priority is to transform and develop. In 2025, Fortum concluded its efficiency improvement programme, reducing annual fixed costs by EUR 100 million (excluding inflation) by the end of 2025. In 2026, fixed costs are expected to be approximately EUR 870 million. Going forward, Fortum expects its Comparable operating profit to improve by EUR 330 million by 2030. This improvement is based on our own actions, for example improved fleet availability, efficiency improvements and organic growth. The improvement does not include impacts from capital expenditure, M&A or power price changes.

In the near term, the operating environment continues to be impacted by strong geopolitical tensions, which cause uncertainty and turbulence and may pose challenges to major industrial investments in the Nordics. However, we continue to see robust underlying customer demand from various industrial sectors, which we believe reflects the long-term power demand growth. We continue to develop our opportunities for customer-driven profitable growth as well as our competitiveness and efficiency.

To conclude, I want to sincerely thank all our employees for their commitment and effort over the past year. I’m also grateful to our customers, partners, shareholders, and other stakeholders for placing their trust in us as we work towards creating a world where people, businesses and nature thrive together."