Friday, March 17, 2017

German Green Revolution Hurts Utilities Clinging to Coal and Gas

A report in Quartz about the economic effects of Germany's green energy revolution provides a stark warning to electrical utilities: start thinking about how you're going to handle the transition or face the consequences.
Yesterday, RWE confirmed a €5.7 billion loss in 2016 that it flagged a few weeks ago. Today, EON revealed a whopping €16 billion loss for the year, the largest in its history. Steep writedowns in the value of coal- and gas-fired power plants, along with the costs of cleaning up nuclear waste, were largely to blame for the shortfalls.
 Of course, in the story we find that these losses may be a sign that the German utilities are coming to grips with the transition.
Like RWE, EON recently split its renewables arm from its languishing fossil-fuel business.
Link: Germany’s renewable energy push has forced $30 billion in losses on its biggest utilities

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