Energy company RWE: Electricity supplier wants to react to extreme weather

Cold waves, heavy rain or floods are also a risk for the energy industry. Extreme weather phenomena caused damage worth millions in the RWE Group. Now he wants to arm himself better against it.

Freezing rain in Texas freezing wind turbines. In addition, a century of cold with a collapsing power supply. Most recently, the flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate – such extreme weather conditions also make the top of Germany’s largest electricity producer RWE thoughtful.

“That is of course a point where you start thinking,” said the new RWE boss Markus Krebber in a conference call on the half-year results. “I see it this way: I think, in addition to the fight against climate change, we also have to deal with the fact that these weather effects occur more frequently.”

Therefore, plans are currently being drawn up on how to better prepare the power supply for such phenomena, according to the top manager. “If you look at this year: This is the second time that we are unexpectedly now – to a smaller extent by the floods, to a greater extent by the capricious weather in Texas – economically to a considerable extent by weather effects.”

Frozen wind turbines

The economic consequences are one thing: the flood damage at RWE amounts to 35 million euros. Part of the Inden open-cast lignite mine needs to be repaired because the flood caused water and meter-high mud to collapse there. Everything was paralyzed for ten days. Much more dramatic: An employee who could later only be recovered dead was swept away.

RWE already had to deal with extreme weather conditions in the spring. Completely unexpectedly, an unprecedented cold spell in the US state of Texas brought its own wind turbines to a standstill. RWE had to buy expensively. The damage here: around 400 million euros.

Nevertheless, one is very satisfied with the first six months, said Krebber. In fact, the energy multinational has even increased its profit forecast for the year as a whole. “Our good half-year result is based on the outstanding development of our energy trading”, said the RWE boss. Because whenever energy prices fluctuate sharply, as recently, this offers the opportunity to make profits in stock market trading.

More coal power again

In addition: RWE has chosen renewable energies as its new core business – since the group took over many wind and solar parks from its competitor E.ON three years ago in an exchange deal. But you still have the old systems.

And because there was less wind, but at the same time after Corona, many companies restarted their production and thus the demand for electricity increased, the traditional, fossil-fuel RWE power plants ran significantly more often again in the first half of the year. The lignite power plants produced almost 50 percent more electricity – their share in the RWE energy mix rose slightly to 26 percent. The gas power plants delivered 35 percent. Around 13 percent of the electricity came from renewable energies.

This share, which is a clear corporate strategy, should increase significantly. RWE spent almost two billion euros on this in the first half of the year. But it’s not that easy to find projects. And climate-damaging coal-fired power plants will always step in, believes the RWE boss – if it is not possible to bring significantly more wind and solar parks to the grid much faster.

“Approval takes far too long”

“The fossil fuels only step in if there is still a gap,” said Krebber. “If you rule out the possibility of rationing electricity at some point, all the energy in the discussion must go to: How do we get green energy sources faster? The rest will take care of itself.”

And he would like politics to be more involved. Specifically: binding, higher expansion targets, more space for wind turbines, fewer distance requirements and more speed in the approval process. “It currently takes five, sometimes seven years before a wind farm on land in Germany can be put into operation. That is of course far too long,” said the RWE boss.

And that is one of the reasons why the majority of RWE’s wind and solar systems are currently located abroad.