“RWE continues to bet on coal and gas plants”

Despite a surge in clean energy production, German utility RWE will continue to rely on coal and gas plants for the foreseeable future, Handelsblatt online reports. RWE CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz said conventional power plants were irreplaceable as long as renewables could not guarantee an uninterrupted power supply. “There is a demand. We don’t have a plan B,” Schmitz said. RWE is even considering buying up capacity from competitors retreating from fossil energy generation, fuelling speculation that RWE could target E.ON spin-off Uniper for takeover, Handelsblatt Online reports. After years of heavy losses due to falling wholesale energy prices, companies like RWE hope the decommissioning of Germany’s remaining nuclear plants in 2022 will push prices up again, the article says.

See the article in German here.

For more information, read the CLEW factsheet How can Germany keep the lights on in a renewable energy future?.