Energy, Oil & Gas issue 125 October 2015

Page 119

PROFILE

Vattenfall

Energy

transformation Operating as one of Europe’s largest generators of electricity, as well as one of the continent’s largest producers of heat, the history of Vattenfall reaches back over 100 years to when the company was founded in Sweden during 1909. The name Vattenfall is taken from the term ‘waterfall’ in the English language and refers to the firm’s original core business, when it was involved in the restructuring of the Trollhättan canal and hydro power plant on behalf of the Swedish State Power Board. Vattenfall AB is a 100 per cent Swedish stateowned entity. Vattenfall electricity generation today stems from six different sources and includes coal, hydro, natural gas and nuclear as well as wind power and biomass. Presently Vattenfall has a workforce of some 30,200 employees and, since April this year, divides its business into six ‘Business Areas’ and operating segments: Customers & Solutions, Generation, Markets, Wind, Heat and Distribution. During the year 2014 Vattenfall

electricity generation and sales of heat across both regions amounted to 172.9 TWh and 24.1 TWh respectively. Across all of the countries in which is active, the Vattenfall Group has approximately 6.2 million electricity customers, 4.3 million electricity network customers and 1.9 million gas customers. Of all of the electricity generated by the company during 2014 by the Group, 48 per cent was produced through fossilbased power; while 29 per cent was nuclear; 20 per cent hydro; two per cent wind and one per cent biomass waste generated. Throughout its long history Vattenfall has played a decisive role in Sweden’s raw materialrefining and export-intensive economy and beyond, however the company is aware that the energy market is an industry that is experiencing a period of dramatic change. For example demand for electricity within Europe has fallen in the wake of the global financial crisis and the supply of generation capacity has risen sharply. Furthermore while the price of coal has fallen, ENERGY,oil&gas

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