| Type | Government enterprise |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1909 as Kungliga Vattenfallsstyrelsen |
| Headquarters | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Key people | President and CEO Øystein Løseth |
| Products | Energy generation, transmission and sales |
| Revenue |
▲15.0 billion euros (2009) ▲24.957 billion USD [1] |
| Employees | 38,179 FTE[1] (2010) |
| Website | www.vattenfall.com |
Vattenfall is a Swedish power company. The name Vattenfall is Swedish for waterfall, and is an abbreviation of its original name, Royal Waterfall Board (Kungliga Vattenfallstyrelsen), it is wholly owned by the Swedish government.
In Germany, Vattenfall is the electric utility for the states of Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saxony.
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Vattenfall was founded in 1909[2] as a state-owned enterprise in Sweden.
From its founding until the mid 1970s, Vattenfall's business was largely restricted to Sweden, with a focus on hydroelectric power generation. Only in 1974 did the company begin to build nuclear reactors in Sweden (the Ringhals 1 and 2 reactors), eventually owning 7 of Sweden's 12 reactors. In 1992, Vattenfall was reformed as the limited liability company Vattenfall AB.
In the years 1990 through 2009, Vattenfall expanded considerably (especially into Germany and Poland), acquiring stakes in Hämeen Sähkö (1996), HEW (1999, 25.1% stake from the city of Hamburg), the Polish heat production company EW (2000, 55% stake), Elsam A/S (2005, 35.3% stake), and Nuon (2009, 49% stake).[2][3] In 2002 Vattenfall AB and its acquisitions were incorporated as Vattenfall Europe AG,[2] making it the third-largest electricity producer in Germany.[2]
In 2006, Vattenfall began production of the pilot Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) plant at Schwarze Pumpe, Germany. In 2007, the Lillgrund Wind Farm in Denmark was commissioned and began delivering electricity.
Vattenfall has power generation branches in Germany, Poland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, as well as business in 90 different countries around the world via its consulting company, Vattenfall Power Consultant.
As of 2009, Vattenfall generates electricity from fossil fuels (52%), nuclear power (25%), hydropower (21%), and "other sources" (wind power, biomass, waste) (2%).[1]
Some of Vattenfall's most notable power generation plants include the 110 MW Lillgrund Wind Farm off the coast of Malmö, Sweden, the world's largest[4] offshore wind farm at Thanet, UK, the nuclear reactors Brunsbuttel Nuclear Power Plant (67% ownership), Krummel Nuclear Power Plant (50% ownership), Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant (20% ownership) in Germany, and the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant and Ringhals Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden.
Vattenfall also owns a number of coal-fired power stations, including the Jänschwalde Power Station, the Boxberg Power Station, the Lippendorf Power Station (owned in part), the Schwarze Pumpe Power Station, and the Rostock Power Station (owned in part).
Vattenfall also operates biomass, coal-fired, and other power plants in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark.
| Year | Electricity Production (TWh) | Emission (Gt CO2) | kg CO2/MWh |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 166 | 68.28 | 411 |
| 2003 | 160 | 71.47 | 448 |
| 2004 | 174 | 69.97 | 403 |
| 2005 | 175 | 71.77 | 410 |
| 2006 | 165 | 74.5 | 450 |
| 2007 | 184 | 84.5 | 459 |
| 2008 | 178 | 81.72 | 459 |
| 2009 | 175 | 79.05 | 452 |
The development of the safety belt is often incorrectly credited to Saab or Volvo. Fatal car accidents were rapidly increasing in Sweden during the 1950s. When a study at Vattenfall of accidents among employees revealed that the majority of casualties came from car accidents, two Vattenfall engineers (Bengt Odelgard and Per-Olof Weman) started to develop the safety belt. Their work set the standard for safety belts in Swedish cars and was presented to Volvo in the late 1950s.[5]
Since 2001, Vattenfall has been working on developing methods for capturing CO2 from large coal-fired power plants and storing it underground. In September 2008, Vattenfall commissioned the world's first oxyfuel pilot plant,[6] including CCS – Carbon capture and storage. The pilot plant is located in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany and uses oxyfuel technology to capture carbon dioxide from coal combustion. Vattenfall has also started investigations for converting one existing CHP plant block at Nordjyllandsvaerket to a CCS demonstration plant.[7]
Vattenfall acknowledges carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and has set a goal of reducing the carbon intensity of its operations by 50% by the year 2030.[8] In 2007, Vattenfall and McKinsey & Company conducted a study to create a global GHG-abatement database. In January 2009, McKinsey launched a second and updated edition of this study, entitled "Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy".[9]
Vattenfall is involved in a number of environmental projects and initiatives, including:
Vattenfall aims to be a climate-neutral company by 2050.[13] Achieving this goal will require the reduction in CO2 emissions from existing operations as well as dramatic increases in generation of electricity with low-CO2 intensity.
Vattenfall sponsorship covers many sports, cultural, humanitarian and environmental initiatives. In 2008, Vattenfall spent SEK 195 million on voluntary contributions, including donations.[14] Corporate initiatives include:
Vattenfall's expansion strategy has involved the acquisition of multiple brown coal fired power plants, which has been highly controversial in Sweden due to the fact that brown coal is among the dirtiest forms of electricity generation. In addition, brown coal is strip mined in a process that sometimes forces communities to relocate as mining fields expand.[20]
According to Greenpeace, Vattenfall’s coal-fired power plants account for more than twice as much CO₂-emissions as the rest of Sweden combined, and, if counting their Swedish-owned but foreign-located plants as Swedish, would bring Sweden up to fourth most CO₂-emitting country, counting per capita.
In May 2009, Vattenfall was voted the winner of the 2009 Climate Greenwash Awards for "its mastery of spin on climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS)." [2] Vattenfall owns four of the dirty thirty most polluting power stations in Europe.
The first fire in the transformer of the nuclear power plant Krümmel (part owned with E.ON) in 2007 forced a closure of the power plant for over two years, while a short circuit in July 2009 in another transformer led to another closure. Due to these incidents the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, Peter Harry Carstensen announced that this will be "letzter Versuch" (their last try) before complete closure of the facility.[21]