“New thrust for utilities“

Germany’s two biggest utilities E.ON and RWE, together with smaller energy providers EnBW and Vattenfall, paid over 24 billion euros in June to “finally rid themselves of the consequences of the government-induced nuclear exit”, Thomas Klemm writes in weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The move caused a sudden surge in demand for their shares. It represented a “remarkable” resurgence as the two big utilities “posted the largest loss in their companies’ history in 2016”, Klemm says. More and more investors believe that “things are going better than expected”, he writes. But the fact that both companies are suffering from low wholesale power prices remained unchanged, Klemm adds.

See the CLEW dossier Utilities and the energy transition for background.