Uniper is postponing its €8bn investment in green technologies and putting back its Scope 1 and 2 carbon neutrality targets by five years to 2040.
The utility company cited a ‘sluggish’ hydrogen economy, falling energy prices and regulatory framework that is developing slower than anticipated.
“As of today, there are few major customers looking for green hydrogen and interested in entering into corresponding supply contracts,” it said in a statement. Uniper generated adjusted EBITDA of €2.1bn in the first nine months of 2024, far below the prior-year figure of €6bn.
The green investment will now occur “into the early 2030s” as opposed to 2030 itself.
“Uniper remains firmly committed to decarbonising its portfolio and doing all it can to propel the energy transition,” it said.
Jutta Dönges, Chief Financial Officer, said it is making progress in implementing its strategy to become a greener company and just under 50% of the electricity produced in 2024 is zero carbon and it is systematically implementing a phase-out of coal.
Uniper is keen to position itself as a ‘hydrogen pioneer’ and conducting projects to make hydrogen ‘a mainstay of the energy supply’, but the delay is another blow for an industry which has had a torrid 2024 across supply, demand, finance and regulatory fronts.
News of the postponement comes shortly after it opened a new green hydrogen storage facility in Krummhorn.
Last month, Uniper and an unnamed ‘major international industrial gas producer’ signed a nine-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Deliveries will start in 2025 with an initial annual volume of 25 GWh, tripling to 75 GWh from 2027 until the end of the contract in 2033.
At the end of September, Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in the UK closed, marking the end of a 140-year coal power era. Plans are afoot to turn it into a green hydrogen facility.
In June, it terminated Russian gas supply contract and received the go-ahead for a new 140 megawatt (MW) CCGT power plant in Gelsenkirchen which will generate electricity for industry and other customers in the region.
The company owns and operates gas storage facilities with a total capacity of more than 7bn cubic metres.
