E.ON profits take a tumble
Germany’s biggest power supplier E.ON said yesterday its profits dropped in the first nine months, a fall triggered by the shutdown of power plants as part of Germany’s policy to abandon nuclear energy. E.ON said in a statement its bottom-line net profit plummeted to €864m (£737m) in the period from January to September from €3.522bn a year earlier. E.ON blamed the drop in nine-month earnings to “adverse factors including the early shutdown of several of our nuclear power stations in Germany, Germany’s nuclear-fuel tax, and continued margin pressure in our gas wholesale business.” The German government is phasing out nuclear power, forcing energy supplies to shutdown their profitable large-scale power plants and also levying a tax on the reactors’ fuel for their remaining lifespan.