Relatively small investments in electricity aim to help them ride the energy transition by offering households and businesses cleaner power than coal can provide and giving their petrol stations a green edge with EV charging.
“Most of the things we do today are linked to our core capabilities,” Dev Sanyal, head of BP’s alternative energy division, told Reuters. “If you can start combining molecules and electrons in an integrated offer you start creating something of greater interest.”Profit is the first challenge when joining the dots between renewables, gas-fired plants and utilities facing growing competition in markets that are fragmenting fast.
Eni says it is now Italy’s second largest electricity producer with six power plants, large electricity trading business and two million customers.Shell says it wants to become the biggest electricity provider and over the past year has made a number of investments including a Brazilian gas-fired power plant and a U.K. utility.
In a sign of the growing competition among the majors for power assets, Total is considering a rival bid to Shell for Dutch energy company Eneco, according to sources close to the matter. Total declined to comment.