Opinion: EON and RWE exercise the exit from the exit

The deal between energy companies E.ON and RWE is an attempt to stem their decline by each focusing on a part of the old conventional energy world that may come costly to consumers and ultimately to the whole economy, energy economist Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) argues in an opinion piece for business magazine Capital. In the short run, the high guaranteed returns in the regulated grid market might look attractive for E.ON, but in the long run renewables and e-mobility would become the boom segments. RWE, meanwhile, had no history as an able and successful player in the renewables business, and its current portfolio of coal, gas and nuclear plants had no future, she writes. “With the mega merger they want to wind the clock back one last time. But the time of the energy giants is over,” Kemfert says.

Find the article in German here.

See the CLEW dossier Utilities and the energy transition for more information.