For more than 125 years, our product has always been the same: electricity. What has changed is how we produce it. We generated our very first megawatt hour in 1900 – from hard coal. Later, lignite and nuclear fuel rods were our major energy sources. Today, they have been replaced with natural gas, wind, sun and water. Tomorrow, we will make a full transition to zero-carbon energy sources. Because our objective is to be carbon neutral. And we aim to accomplish this by 2040.
Green energy is the lifeblood of a sustainable economy. And demand for it is also rising outside of the energy sector. Be it in industry, transport or buildings, fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas must be replaced by zero-carbon energy sources everywhere. And where it is not possible to switch to green electricity directly, for example in steel production, hydrogen is a suitable alternative – that is hydrogen produced using electricity from renewables. Together with renowned partners from industry and science, we have set our sights on a hydrogen economy. We have already launched about 30 projects. Our long-term goal is to supply both green electricity and green hydrogen, a second product with huge potential demand.
This goes to show that our main product, electricity, and our future product, hydrogen, harbour more potential than ever before.
They present RWE with huge opportunities to grow profitably. We plan to invest more than 50 billion euros in the green energy of tomorrow and thereafter – in wind and solar farms, battery storage, flexible backup power plants and electrolysers for hydrogen production. In net terms, i.e. after deducting proceeds on the sale of stakes in projects, expenditure will total some 30 billion euros. Our objective here is to double generation capacity in our core business to 50 gigawatts. And we expect this to be reflected in our earnings. Our goal for 2030 is to achieve about €5 billion in adjusted EBITDA. This would represent an improvement of about 80% compared to 2021. As we work to accomplish this, we will also make a socially acceptable exit from coal-fired generation. We want to do this as quickly as possible, while ensuring security of supply at all times.
By aligning our environmental and economic targets, we are gaining increasing acceptance among our stakeholder groups: investors, employees, environmental activists and policymakers. By enabling the future’s sustainable energy world, we are securing our place in it. RWE’s purpose ‘Our energy for a sustainable life’ expresses that this responsibility is what drives us and shapes our entrepreneurial actions. We want to play our part in the joint effort to limit the global rise in temperature to far below two degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era. Our accomplishments demonstrate how seriously we are taking this: our carbon dioxide emissions from power production have more than halved since 2012. Based on a review by the independent Science Based Targets initiative, our emission reduction strategy is in line with the Paris climate target. This is scientific proof that we are on the right path.
Our path leads to a sustainable, carbon-neutral energy world.
Come join us as a shareholder and benefit from the opportunities this path has to offer.
