Germany’s largest green power provider Lichtblick could soon belong to Shell
Tageszeitung
The Dutch oil company Shell and pension fund PGGM have expressed interest in buying the Dutch energy company Eneco, owner of Germany’s largest green power provider Lichtblick, reports Bernward Janzing in the Tageszeitung.
The 53 municipalities that own Eneco, which is heavily invested in sustainable energy projects, said in December they will sell it via an auction later this year, according to Reuters. Since December 2018, Eneco has owned all of Lichtblick, which has more than 600,000 customers in Germany.
In a separate commentary, Janzing writes that a deal “would reveal more clearly than ever that the energy transition has shrivelled into a technical transformation […] This leaves a bitter aftertaste, because originally the Energiewende was also meant to become a project of decentralised ownership structures – a citizens’ project.” Janzing says many Lichtblick customers will be highly critical of a Shell ownership. Several readers of the left-wing tageszeitung said in the article’s comment section they would cancel their Lichtblick contracts if Shell bought the company.
