“The revenue cushion”

Distribution grids used to have a reputation as a boring low-profit business but have become a key source of revenue for German utility innogy, Helmut Bünder writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Just like its competitor E.ON, the subsidiary of RWE could not manage its “reorientation towards a new energy world“ without the reliable revenue from its grid infrastructure, Bünder says. “Grid fees have taken over the role formerly played by the constant income from large power plants,” he argues. While the companies pin their hopes for future profit on wind and solar power, distribution grids were a “revenue cushion” that would continue to be important for some time to come.

See the CLEW dossier Utilities and the energy transition and the CLEW factsheet Power grid fees – unfair and opaque? for background.