Going forward, we intend to do much more to deploy our expertise and skills rather than simply leveraging our balance sheet. Our capital will serve as an enabler, allowing us to focus on processes that create the most value. We'll design partnerships that require less than full ownership and that enable each partner to contribute what they do best. We'll set demanding investment hurdles to ensure that our new growth projects create significant value: new growth projects for example, such as our planned offshore wind farms in Europe, will have to deliver a return significantly above their cost of capital. This additional return is generally 2.5 percentage points, but can vary by business area.

Example: New approach for a wind project

E.ON designs, develops, and builds a wind farm. After commissioning, we sell all or part of it to a partner while continuing to manage its operation. This approach would enable us to deploy our superior skills in wind-project development and construction and to lock in the value we've created.