Gas supplier Uniper has announced a new strategy that it will see it investing directly in renewable energy projects, including wind and solar.
It said that it support the necessary transformation of the energy industry by offering flexible, balanced, and bespoke forms of energy production.
Uniper will invest more than €8bn through 2030 for its green transformation alone. This is triple its average annual investments of the past three years.
This includes investments in solar and wind farms, an area in which Uniper aims for significant growth.
Uniper intends for 80% of its installed generating capacity to be zero-carbon by 2030.
The company is adapting its own power plants and assets and investing in flexible, secure power generating units.
It will end coal-fired power generation by 2029 at the latest.
Uniper intends to gradually decarbonize its gas business by using green gases like hydrogen.
In line with market developments, the company aims for 5% to 10% of its portfolio to consist of green gases by 2030.
It will also continue to repurpose some of its existing gas storage facilities for hydrogen storage.
Chief executive Michael Lewis said: “The crisis last year demonstrated the central role Uniper plays in the energy market.
“We were financially stabilized by the German Federal Government just under eight months ago, and only a short time afterward we achieved the turnaround.
“We’ve significantly diversified our gas procurement.
“Our supply obligations to municipal utilities and industrial customers for 2023 and 2024-which we entered into before the Russian supply disruption-are almost fully hedged by forward transactions.
“Today I can therefore say with certainty that 2022 will not repeat itself for us. Our successful stabilization and financial recovery have again given us latitude for new growth and corporate transformation.
“What’s important to me above all is that we remain the reliable partner for our customers that we’ve always been in the past, even during last year’s crisis.
“We also want to become greener faster so that we can offer our customers bespoke energy solutions for their own transformation.”