Ørsted has announced plans to sell off its domestic customer business in Denmark, along with the distribution network and City Light businesses, to focus on supplying and trading green power internationally.
The company claims a global leadership position in offshore wind, and said it has an ambitious plan to expand in existing and new markets. In addition, it is working to develop a portfolio of green growth initiatives. That meant the domestic customers and its distribution business, which represent 5.6% of profit in 2017, was “not a sales channel supporting the company’s long-term international growth in renewables”.
Ørsted said access to sales of energy solutions to corporate and wholesale customers would become ”still more strategically important” because “the continued technological innovation in green energy is expected to translate into continued cost reductions and a gradual decrease in subsidies on the journey towards producing and selling green energy entirely on commercial terms”. As a result, it will set up a new business unit, Customer Solutions, to merge the company’s activities across the corporate customer and trading businesses.
The businesses to be divested comprise:
- Power distribution business Radius, with one million electricity customers.
- A residential supply business with 733,000 electricity customers and 91,000 gas customers, plus boiler service.
- City Light, which operates and maintains 160,000 street lights in 15 municipalities.