E.ON

The integration of Innogy’s customer solutions business will expand E.ON’s customer base to around 50 million. This segment mainly focuses on decarbonizing heat, including solutions such as heat pumps and district heating based on electric heat pumps, waste heat and geothermal heat. E.ON is expanding the segment’s activities by developing digital tools for optimising demand-side forecasting and management to flatten production peaks and minimise energy losses. E.ON’s second main business, energy networks, is also key to connect consumers with distributed renewable energy producers. Furthermore, E.ON is working on electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure projects such as ultra-fast charging stations that can address the issue of range anxiety, a major reason for reluctance to transition to EVs.

E.ON plans to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 75% by 2030 and by 100% by 2040, both relative to 2019. The company also aims to reduce its scope 3 emissions by 50% by 2030 and by 100% by 2050 compared to 2019. While E.ON’s scope 1 and 2 targets are nearly aligned with its 1.5°C pathway, the bulk of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – around 90% – are now scope 3 emissions from purchased power sold to end customers and combustion of natural gas sold to end customers. E.ON could bring forward its scope 3 emissions carbon neutrality objective and add more intermediary objectives to incentivise near-term action over the long-term goals.

E.ON reduced its scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity by 93% between 2015 and 2020, from 904 gCO2e/kWh in 2015 to 61 gCO2e/kWh in 2020. This reduction was aligned with the company’s 1.5°C pathway. Furthermore, E.ON’s emissions intensity is projected to annually decrease by around72% between 2021 and 2025. The company’s past scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity reductions are due to its strategic restructuring and the transfer of its electricity production assets. Despite this shift in core activities, E.ON is projected to strongly exceed its carbon budget to 2035. This is partly due to the fact that E.ON operates several combined heat and power (CHP) plants and gas plants across Europe, and one coal power plant in Turkey.

In 2020, E.ON formed a new subsidiary, E.ON Group Innovation GmbH, dedicated entirely to innovation. The company will focus on Industry Automation and Electrification, Energy Communities and Networks, Networked Mobility and Connected Life. Furthermore, E.ON’s Energy Research Centre conducts research on smart home solutions, smart grids and efficient building technologies. Over the next five years, E.ON will fund joint research projects for a total of EUR 10 million (USD 11.4 million). However, the company performed poorly on intangible investments as it does not disclose sufficient financial details on mitigation research and development (R&D) expenditures.

E.ON recently acquired Innogy to strengthen its network and customer businesses. E.ON plans to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 75% by 2030 and by 100% by 2040, both relative to 2019. The company also aims at reducing its scope 3 emissions by 50% by 2030 and by 100% by 2050 compared to 2019.

E.ON’s scope 3 emissions mainly occur during the generation of the power purchased and resold and during the use of the gas sold to customers. These emissions now represent around 90% of E.ON’s GHG emissions, but E.ON does not describe how it plans to achieve its scope 3 reduction targets.

Between 2021 and 2023, E.ON will invest around EUR 14 billion (USD 16 billion) in customer solutions and energy networks projects helping to reduce its customers’ carbon footprint and helping to upgrade the distribution power grids with sensors on smart grids or technologies to monitor energy flows in a granular way.

Between 2015 and 2020, E.ON’s scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity decreased by 93%, at a faster rate than that required by its 1.5°C pathway. This is due to E.ON’s spin-off of its fossil assets into Uniper in 2016 and the transfer of its renewable assets to RWE in 2019.

E.ON’s restructuring has enabled the company to transition and significantly reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity. The company has set a new strategy which focuses on the reduction of its scope 3 emissions, now the bulk of its emissions. E.ON could strengthen its low-carbon transition plan by detailing the concrete actions it will implement to achieve its GHG targets.