Renewable Energy Sources
Renewables like hydro, wind, and biomass power are playing an increasingly important role in the energy supply system. Europe in particular plans to dramatically expand its renewable-source generating capacity. The EU intends to increase renewables’ share of total energy consumption from today’s 6.4 percent to 20 percent by 2020. It’s obvious that this target will have a large effect on the energy industry.
E.ON believes that EU’s target can be achieved if the individual member states’ divergent subsidy programs are harmonized and if better power storage systems are developed.
20 Terawatt-hours from Nature
Our renewables effort focuses predominantly on hydro, wind, and biomass. At year end 2006, the E.ON Group had 6,612 megawatts of renewable-source generating capacity. Renewables represented 8.9 percent (20.5 terawatt-hours) of our total generation in 2006. Hydro is by far our biggest source of green power, accounting for 85 percent of our renewables output in 2006. We haven’t begun large-scale use of solar or geothermal energy due to their unproven commercial viability. However, we support a number of projects to spur the development of these technologies.
Lots of Potential
We intend to further expand our renewables capacity. We already spend five euros on renewables for every one euro we spend on nuclear power. E.ON plans to invest about EUR 1 billion in renewables through 2009 and a total of more than EUR 5 billion through 2016. We also recognize the need to speed the development of today’s technologies. In 2007 alone we plan to spend EUR 15.5 million on large green-power demonstration projects and EUR 9.1 million on smaller research projects focusing on renewables and environmental protection.
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