Germany’s largest electricity producer RWE wants to significantly increase investments in wind and solar parks and other green technologies. Between 2024 and 2030, the Essen-based DAX group would like to invest 55 billion euros in green electricity projects, storage solutions, electrolyzers – systems for producing hydrogen – and gas power plants. The power plants are supposed to step in when wind and solar parks do not provide enough electricity. In the future, they will not be operated with climate-damaging natural gas, but with green hydrogen. This is hydrogen that was produced in a climate-friendly way using green electricity.
CEO Markus Krebber presented the plans on Tuesday at an investor meeting in London. All the new projects should also increase profits – the adjusted operating result is expected to climb from seven to eight billion euros in the current year to more than nine billion euros in 2030. “We are growing sustainably and increasing our earnings while at the same time decarbonizing our portfolio even faster,” said Krebber.
Environmentalists have long viewed RWE as a dirty dinosaur that operates nuclear and coal-fired power plants and digs up the landscape with its brown coal open-cast mines. It was only at the beginning of the year that the company hit the headlines again because of the clearance of an abandoned village at the Garzweiler opencast mine. But the company, which has almost 19,000 employees worldwide, shut down its last nuclear power plant in April and is scheduled to stop using lignite in 2030. Instead, the people of Essen are investing in eco-power plants. They have already contributed a third to RWE’s electricity mix in the past nine months – and the trend is rising sharply.
The USA benefits more than Germany
Krebber prescribed ambitious growth targets for green projects to RWE two years ago. Since then, the output of green power plants has increased from nine to 35 gigawatts. For comparison: Large coal-fired power plants have a capacity of over one gigawatt. Now the CEO is further increasing the goals and investment amounts. RWE’s green projects are expected to have a capacity of more than 65 gigawatts by 2030. Of the 55 billion euros that the group wants to invest by 2030, 11 billion euros will go to Germany, and in the USA it will be almost twice as much: 20 billion euros.