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REGIONAL REVIEWS Major European firms invest in renewables By Tsvetana Paraskova
European Energy Review
Major European companies continued to announce investments, acquisitions, and strategies to boost their renewables portfolios. Italy’s Eni created a new business structure as part of its ambition to be a leader in the energy transition. The Italian group has set up two business divisions—Natural Resources, which will develop the upstream oil & gas portfolio sustainably, and the Energy Evolution division, which will support the evolution of the company’s power generation, product transformation and marketing from fossil to bio, blue, and green.
EU-wide and individual government policies supporting clean energy, as well as new alternative energy projects, including from oil and gas majors, were the highlights of this month’s energy landscape in Europe. Claudio Descalzi
In oil resource development, Equinor and Aker BP have agreed on the development concept for the licenses Krafla, Fulla, and North of Alvheim (NOA) on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The concept consists of a processing platform operated by Aker BP and an unmanned processing platform operated by Equinor with possibilities to several satellite platforms and tiebacks to cover the various discoveries. The area consists of several oil and gas discoveries with total recoverable resources estimated at more than 500 million barrels of oil equivalents, Equinor said on 11 June.
“We want to be main actors in a Just Energy Transition, in which we believe, and is central to Eni’s transformation,” CEO Claudio Descalzi said.
Recovery plan for Europe includes investments in green energy
France’s supermajor Total will become the fourthlargest supplier of gas and power in Spain after buying Energías de Portugal’s portfolio of 2.5 million B2C customers and two gas-fired combined cycle power plants, which represent an electricity generation capacity of nearly 850 MW.
The European Commission proposed a major recovery plan for the European Union after the coronavirus crisis. The plan will support the green transition to a climateneutral economy via funds from Next Generation EU, a new recovery instrument.
In the past month, Total also signed an agreement with SSE Renewables to acquire a 51-per cent stake in the Seagreen 1 offshore wind farm project in the Scottish North Sea. The 1,140 MW project has reached simultaneously a final investment decision and financial close.
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis
“The recovery plan turns the immense challenge we face into an opportunity, not only by supporting the recovery but also by investing in our future: the European Green Deal and digitalisation will boost jobs and growth, the resilience of our societies and the health of our environment,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. European organisations promoting clean energy welcomed the EC’s green recovery plan.
“This move represents a major change of scale for Total’s offshore wind activity in line with our strategy of profitable growth in renewables and low carbon electricity,” Total’s chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné said.
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Secretary General at Hydrogen Europe, welcomed the creation of the instrument, saying: “This is a historic opportunity to realise a systemic change towards clean technologies like hydrogen. A massive support to hydrogen and hydrogen technologies will put us firmly on track to achieving ambitious targets for 2030 and climate neutrality in 2050.”
Ursula von der Leyen
www.ogvenergy.co.uk I July 2020
WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson commented: “Excellent proposals from the EU Commission on the “Recovery Strategy”. The big bazooka the EU economy requires. And the right sort of investments. It’s clearly going to be a green recovery. And a boost for the energy transition.”
Spain’s Iberdrola said in early June it would invest up to 4 billion Euro in renewable energy in France over the next four years. Iberdrola plans to invest in wind farms and solar plants and expressed interest in future tenders to build new offshore wind farms. Another Spanish energy company, Repsol, said it would invest in two industrial decarbonisation projects in Spain. Repsol will invest in a project to build the world’s largest plants to manufacture net-zero emissions fuels, using CO2 and green hydrogen generated with renewable energy. The other project is for a plant to generate gas from urban waste. The generated gas will be used to replace part of the traditional fuels that the Basque refinery, one of Spain’s largest, currently uses in its production process. In France, EDF Renewables, Canada’s Enbridge, and wpd began construction of the Fécamp Offshore Wind Farm with capacity of 500 MW. Project commissioning is scheduled in 2023. Once completed, the wind farm will be able to provide enough annual electricity to meet the power needs for 770,000 people.
