E.ON drops coal and nuclear power for renewables

E.ON has announced its decision to shift their energy production from coal and nuclear to renewable power and they will focus on clean energy, power grids and energy efficiency services.

According to The International Energy Agency (IEA) substituting to renewable and gas will require pan-European balancing mechanisms to benefit windless and cloudy days, which signifies that more investments need to be made into renewables.

E.ON’s decision to invest in renewable energy will provide Germany's Energy Transition project with a significant boost.

The German energy giant expect to divide their core business into clean energy and fossil fuel generation and energy trading by 2016.

Last year, the German electric utilities company, RWE announced plans to store 3.1GW of fossil fuel plants, while Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW), a publicly traded electric utilities company, said it would double planned asset to sales to €3bn (£2.4bn) to free up cash for clean energy investments.

The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Maria Krautzberger says, “RWE announced that they are thinking of shifting their energy generation towards renewables and EnBW is also discussing it, but E.ON is actually the biggest player so it is consequent that they are the first to make this announcement.”

Yesterday, RWE confirmed their unlikely decision to split their core businesses in two, the clean energy sector and the fossil fuel generation sector. However, they have revealed that they are struggling with falling demand created by an efflux in home power generation from rooftop solar panels.

The Energy Transition project is re-shaping Germany’s power production capacity, with a plan to terminate nuclear energy by 2022 and start-off a rise in renewables that is expected to provide 35 - 40% of electricity by 2025. The Energy Transition project is hoping for at least an 80 % increase of renewables by 2050.

Maria Krautzberger says E.ON’s move would be “a great influence on the Energiewende, making it more possible and probable. This is a structural change that gives you hope that our big approaches will have success. It is really something”.