Germany’s largest utility, E.ON, is selling off its coal, natural gas, and nuclear assets, and “will focus exclusively on renewable energy, energy efficiency, digitizing the distribution network, and enabling customer-sited energy sources like storage paired with solar,” according to reports on Greentech Grid and Climate Progress.
E.ON will split into two companies next year and complete its divestment by 2016, Lacey writes. “E.ON’s dramatic move comes one year after Germany’s second-biggest utility, RWE, announced plans to completely transform its power delivery business in favour of a ‘prosumer’ business model.”
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“Until not too long ago, the structure of the energy business was relatively straightforward and linear,” E.ON Board Chair Johannes Teyssen told investors and media earlier this week. “The value chain extended from the drill hole, gas field, and power station to transmission lines, the wholesale market, and end customers.”
While that model “will remain indispensable,” he added, “a new world has grown up alongside it, a world characterized above all by technological innovation and individualized customer expectations. The increasing technological maturity and cost-efficiency and thus the growth of renewables constitute a key driver of this trend.”
