Uniper Rising: Can Germany's Gas Giant Go Green? Ep206: Michael Lewis

When Russia unleashed its illegal and unprovoked invasion of
Ukraine in February 2022, gas prices in Europe spiked by a factor
of 10, driving a wave of bankruptcies and restructurings of
European energy companies. Uniper was one of those. 


Uniper is one of Germany's largest energy companies. It is active
across more than 40 countries and has 19.5 GW of power
generation capacity to its name. It was one of the funders
of the built-but-never-used Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that
connects Russia to Germany and, for most of its history, was
heavily reliant on Russian gas. 


So when the gas taps from Russia were turned off, Uniper reported
losses of $40 billion — the highest losses in German corporate
history — and was subsequently nationalised by the German
government. The company has since returned to profitability under
its new CEO, Michael Lewis, our guest this week on Cleaning
Up. 


Michael Lewis joins Michael Liebreich to discuss the company's
rise from the ashes, and how it plans to reach its climate
targets and overcome the dunkelflaute.


Leadership Circle: 
Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its
founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner,
EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini
Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature
Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on
the Leadership Circle, please visit
https://www.cleaningup.live. 


More from Cleaning Up:


The Sierra Leone documentary: https://youtu.be/z-5QjSfy2SM

Ep164 — Leonhard Birnbaum, CEO of EON:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-DHuPNEDg

Episode 175 — Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl-cRh35Hm4

Episode 190 — Lord Adair Turner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTngGxpeW0