German energy giant Uniper, which was bailed out by the government last year, pledged on Tuesday to invest more than $8.8 billion (8 billion euros) in green energy by 2030 as it looks to become a greener energy provider faster than previously planned.
Last year, Germany moved to save its energy companies which had been amassing losses with the lack of contracted Russian gas supply and the high price they had to pay on the spot market to replace lost Russian volumes.
Germany nationalized Uniper in September 2022 as it was looking to prevent a collapse of the German energy and gas suppliers.
In the first half of this year, Uniper booked "extraordinarily strong first-half earnings," the company said today, benefitting to a great extent from hedging transactions for fossil-fueled power generation and its midstream gas business. Strong operating performance in a favorable market environment - with natural gas prices much lower this year - also helped the energy firm book strong earnings.
"Uniper will be transformed into a greener company much faster than previously planned," the energy giant said, adding that it plans 80% of its installed generating capacity to be zero-carbon by 2030, with significant growth in solar and wind.
The 8-billion-euro investment in Uniper's green transformation through 2030 would be triple its average annual investments of the past three years.
Uniper also brought forward its target for its Scope 1 to 3 emissions to be carbon-neutral by 2040, ten years earlier than previously planned. It plans to achieve group-wide carbon neutrality for its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035.
"We've significantly diversified our gas procurement," CEO Michael Lewis said in statement, adding that "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."
"We also want to become greener faster so that we can offer our customers bespoke energy solutions for their own transformation," Uniper's top executive noted.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More