Vattenfall plans billions in investments in Germany

Vattenfall plans billions in investments in Germany Article by dpa • 2 hours • 2 minutes reading time Vattenfall sees great growth opportunities for its renewable energy business in Germany. The Swedish energy group Vattenfall wants to invest more than five billion euros in the renewable energy business in Germany by 2028. "Germany is the fastest growing market for renewable energies in Europe," said Robert Zurawski, Vattenfall's CFO responsible for the country. Electricity demand in this country is expected to rise by 40 percent by 2030 and could double by 2045. "We see a wide range of growth opportunities here for our growing business in fossil-free generation and energy services." On the one hand, the group wants to drive forward the expansion of fossil-free energy generation and storage capacities. Every year, Vattenfall will build solar parks with an output of 500 megawatts and large batteries with a capacity of 300 megawatts. "And only in combination with both technologies in order to adjust the fluctuating solar production to the electricity consumption of consumers," it said. Swedes want more electricity partnerships with industrial customers Vattenfall also referred to the offshore wind farms Nordlicht 1 and 2 in the North Sea, which are due to go online by 2028 with a capacity of 1.6 gigawatts. In the supply market, the group is relying on more electricity partnerships with industrial customers who are increasingly having to switch their energy supply to green electricity. As examples, the company referred to contracts already concluded with the steel producer Salzgitter AG and the chemical company Evonik. "Electricity partnerships offer producers and industrial consumers of renewable electricity investment security, stable prices and risk diversification," emphasized Zurawski. The group is also expanding its private customer business and is placing greater emphasis on advice and on-site installation in the future. Vattenfall says it is now cooperating with around 150 local craft businesses to install heat pumps, photovoltaic systems or electricity storage systems in private homes. The Swedes recently announced in Berlin that they had bought the craft business Geosolar, which employs around 90 people.