The chief financial officer of German utility RWE acknowledged Thursday the importance of weather to its renewables segment, as the company reported “much lower” wind volumes in Northern and Central Europe for the first half of 2021.
In a media interview, Müller stressed the need to have a broad range of assets in place to cope with potential fluctuations related to weather conditions.
“I think what you need to do is balance your portfolio,” he said. “So, have a portfolio across different technologies … be it onshore, offshore, or solar or storages, and also across regions.”
“And what we have seen in the first half is there was poorer wind in Europe but at the same time there was stronger wind in the U.S.”
For offshore wind, the Essen-headquartered firm’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization came in at 459 million euros ($538.5 million) in January to June 2021. This compares to 585 million euros for the same timeframe last year.
Thursday also saw Danish energy firm Orsted state it would maintain its full-year guidance for 2021 even though it warned that lower wind speeds had affected output in the first six months of the year.
In a statement, Orsted said operating profit for the first half of 2021 came in at 13.1 billion Danish krone (around $2.1 billion), a 3.3 billion krone jump compared to the same period in 2020.
