EWE CEO: Germany's EWE will not participate in the first round of power plant tendering

The CEO of German utility EWE said that the company has no intention to participate in a upcoming tender in Europe's largest economy for new power plant capacities. However, this could change if additional rounds are scheduled later in this decade. Germany announced earlier this month that it had reached an accord with the European Commission regarding a plan to construct new power plants. It added it would tender 12 Gigawatts of capacity by 2026 with a particular focus on gas-fired sites.

Plans are being developed to ensure the security of the supply by constructing baseload power stations. This reflects the phase-out of coal and the intermittent nature renewable energy.

The ministry stated that there will be additional tenders in 2027, 2029/2030 and 2031 for new capacity, but also added that these future 'tenders' are open to existing sites.

We will not participate in the first round. "We'll see later, we want to first know the design of the tender," Stefan Dohler said at the Handelsblatt Energy Summit.

This may be of interest to smaller plants but it is not the main focus. "We are talking about three-digit Megawatts here."

EWE, a company in which the private equity firm Ardian holds 26% of shares, has committed to spending up?16 billion euro ($19.2billion) by 2035. Of this, 1 billion will be spent on projects involving hydrogen, for which investors have been more scrutinizing. RWE, Uniper and other peers have stopped or delayed green hydrogen project due to cost overruns and uncertainty about when the technology becomes competitive.

Dohler stated that the issue at hand requires "entrepreneurial courage" and added that EWE has no plans to make new investments in the hydrogen industry as the projects are not economically viable.

(source: Reuters)