ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - Energy company RWE believes it is making good progress in building a sustainable energy system. "We currently have projects with 7.2 gigawatts under construction," Chief Financial Officer Michael Müller said in Essen on Thursday. Work on two large offshore wind farms in Denmark and the UK, as well as 17 onshore and 36 solar projects, was progressing well, he said. In addition, he said, there were 15 battery plants. "In the second half of the year we will continue to invest in the energy turnaround," Müller announced. By way of comparison, the Datteln IV hard coal-fired power plant has a capacity of just over one gigawatt.

RWE invested nine billion euros in the first half of the year. More than two-thirds of this amount went into the acquisition of the U.S. solar company Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses. Generation capacity grew by a total of 5.1 gigawatts in the first half of the year. RWE's renewables portfolio thus rose to 15.8 gigawatts. "We were able to generate around 20 percent more electricity from wind and solar than in the same period last year. And that was despite the fact that wind levels in large parts of Europe and the USA were below average," Müller said.

RWE CEO Markus Krebber expressed concern about offshore wind power expansion. "We are currently experiencing a challenging phase in the global offshore business," he said. Inflation and strained supply chains were causing prices for offshore turbines to rise significantly. In recent weeks, he said, initial projects in Europe and the U.S. have been halted, citing cost increases. This is not good news for the global energy transition, he said. "Something like this is the worst case for the energy transition: When large projects that have already been awarded are not realized as planned after all."

He stressed that RWE was implementing its offshore projects as planned. In this context, he spoke of projects in Germany, the UK, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland and the USA that RWE was pushing ahead with.

In the past few months, the Essen-based company has been doing well in its day-to-day business: At the end of July, RWE presented preliminary figures for the first half of the year and, against this backdrop, also raised its targets for the year. In particular, high profits in electricity generation from water, biomass and gas provided tailwind in recent months. In addition, energy trading went better than expected./tob/DP/mis