RWE, Germany's biggest power company, is going green | The Economist - 0 views
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dirtiest companies for more than a century; now rwe is aiming to be among the cleanest
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On October 1st it agreed to buy the renewable-energy business of Consolidated Edison (ConEd), an American utility, for $6.8bn. Three days later it signed an agreement with Germany’s regional and federal governments to bring forward plans to stop generating electricity with lignite, an especially filthy sort of coal, by eight years to 2030
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The recent announcements are part of a much bigger realignment. In November last year it unveiled plans to invest €50bn ($50bn) to increase renewable-power capacity from 25 to 50 gigawatts (gw) within eight years, about a third of its current total.
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the firm’s boss, told analysts that its lignite business is likely to be hived off as a non-profit foundation as soon as the current energy crisis ends and German politicians have the time to give regulatory approval.
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ConEd’s 3GW renewable business will make rwe America’s fourth-largest provider of green energy, but also comes with a pipeline of wind and solar projects of over 7gw
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Enel, an Italian firm, and Iberdrola, a Spanish one, want to reach 129gw and 95gw, respectively, in green power-generation capacity by 2030.
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. The Qatar Investment Authority (qia), the country’s sovereign-wealth fund, contributed €2.4bn of cash for the deal and will henceforth own 9% of rwe. But it only paid about half the multiple for its stake in rwe that rwe shelled out for ConEd’s renewable business.
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When Chancellor Olaf Scholz toured the Middle East in September, Qatar was one of the stops. Germany’s government hopes that the resource-rich Gulf state will one day provide exports of liquefied natural gas to replace imports from Russia. With qia now becoming rwe’s largest shareholder, the gas is more likely to start flowing