Hydrogen is set to play an increasingly pivotal role in Uniper’s strategy after it announced an €8bn ($8.8bn) investment to accelerate its green transformation.

Uniper intends to ‘gradually decarbonise’ its gas business by using green gases like hydrogen and aims for 5% to 10% of its portfolio to consist of green gases by 2030. The Düsseldorf-based company will continue to repurpose some of its existing gas storage facilities for hydrogen storage.

It is targeting 15-20GW green and flexible power capacity, 200Twh of ‘green’ sales and 1GW electrolyser capacity.

CEO Michael Lewis said its supply obligations to municipal utilities and industrial customers for 2023 and 2024, which it entered into before the Russian supply disruption, are almost fully hedged by forward transactions. It posted adjusted net income of €2,487m ($2,732m) in the first half of 2023, a significant improvement on the -€490m (-$538m) prior-year figure.