Coal giant Vattenfall creates solar plus storage business unit

PV Magazine

Vattenfall, one of Europe’s leading producers of coal, has split its Business Area Wind division into three sub-groups – one of which will focus specifically on solar PV and storage.

The new Photovoltaics & Battery Business Unit was spun out of the Wind division on July 1, which is now also broken down into Offshore and Onshore divisions.

Following the creation of the new solar+storage division, Vattenfall announced that it is to invest €150 million in large-scale and decentralized solar PV and battery projects across Vattenfall’s chief European strongholds, namely Sweden, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and France.

Head of Vattenfall Wind, Gunnar Groebler, said that the new organizations have been created to enable the utility to further reduce levelized costs of energy thanks to an increased focus on each power source that will help to reduce complexity.

“Vattenfall is already among the pioneering companies in terms of cost reductions in the offshore and onshore wind sector as it is our ambition to lead the industry into a profitable but also highly competitive future,” said Groebler.

The Vattenfall Wind leader added that the utility faces “a fast-changing business environment” in all markets, and believes that the creation of leaner divisions within the firm will augment its ability to meet the demands of each energy source.

Claus Wattendrup, who now heads up Vattenfall’s Photovoltaics & Batteries Business Unit, told pv magazine last month that the company aims to eventually become CO2-free, and sees solar+storage as a viable means to achieving that.

One proposed plan is to pair all of Vattenfall’s existing wind installations in Europe with solar PV+storage – a strategy that could potentially boost Vattenfall’s solar footprint by an initial 400 MW.

Source: PV Magazine. Reproduced with permission.