Greenpeace makes official move on coal mines

Greenpeace has made an official offer for a range of German brown coal mines and power plants.

Earlier this month the group’s Nordic sector announced its plans to acquire European energy generator Vattenfall’s brown coal mines and power plants.

The operator has approximately ten coal assets in the country, with mines and power plants valued at around two to three billion euros.

Greenpeace Nordic has remained true to its word and put in an official statement of interest to Vattenfall, outlining its reasoning behind the acquisition as well as its plans to eventually decommission the operations.

It explained it would develop a group potentially dubbed “Beyond Lignite Foundation’ to aid the transition, with eventual plans to shut all operations and power plants by 2030 at the latest, moving the region to renewable energy sources.

However, Greenpeace did not outline the potential price of the acquisition, instead outlining the current depressed asset sale price likely to be seen in the market, adding, “Greenpeace’s evaluation of the Target’s value is not positive, which makes the question of our financial capability of acquiring the assets irrelevant.”

"We don't want to pay any money for it, it's worth nothing," the head of Greenpeace Energy, Nils Müller, explained.

Greenpeace is reportedly in the running against Czech energy groups CEZ and EPH for the assets, according to The Local.

It is uncertain whether Vattenfall would seriously consider Greenpeace’s offer.
