“We had to reduce our investments in renewables, in offshore wind but also other areas, as simply we don’t have the money,” Terium told a conference on renewable energy in Berlin.
He added that the German group can’t afford its original plans for a build-up of renewable generation capacity any longer.
After servicing debts and meeting operational costs, RWE now has somewhere between €1bn and €1.5bn available, which is less than previously, Terium said.
“We need to decide and spend the money where we get the safest return,” he said. “And if we look at offshore wind, at the moment that isn’t in Germany. English wind parks are clearly higher up in the queue for investment decisions.”
Terium didn’t specify which renewable energy projects the company has scrapped, or plans to.
RWE’s renewable energy unit RWE Innogy has been developing plans for a 1GW wind park off the German North Sea coast to be built in three stages called Nordsee 1, 2 and 3.
In August the company signed a turbine contract with manufacturer Repower for the 330MW Nordsee 1 phase – but stressed at the time that no final investment decision would be taken on the wind farm until this year.
