November 26 2019, 12:01am, The Times

Royal Dutch Shell has suffered a setback in its push into green energy after losing out to Mitsubishi in the €4 billion battle for a Dutch power utility.

The Anglo-Dutch energy group had been pursuing the acquisition of Eneco in a joint bid with PGGM, a Dutch pension fund service provider, but it was beaten yesterday by the Japanese conglomerate.

Maarten Wetselaar, head of Shell’s “new energies” division, said that he was “disappointed” but would continue to look for other opportunities in the transition to greener energy. read more

20 October 2019: The Sunday Times

What seemed like the perfect route to a low-carbon world now looks like a risky bet, writes John Collingridge

What do the former Redcar steelworks on Teesside, a university in the Midlands and forests in the Scottish Highlands have in common? Answer: Big Oil is praying they hold the key to its future.

Strikes by schoolchildren, the rise of “flight-shaming” and an exodus of investors have left the energy industry reeling. Oil giants’ multibillion-pound bet — that gas will power the global economy into a low-carbon future — now looks risky.

As the mood changes, Big Oil is making increasingly ambitious — and desperate — attempts to clean itself up and reduce or trap carbon emissions. For giants including Shell, Total and BP, that means carbon capture and storage (CCS) at Redcar, promoting hydrogen as an alternative fuel, such as a pilot at Keele University — and even planting forests in Scotland. read more

Shell is planning to be the first fuel retailer in the UK to take out traditional fuels from an operating service station and replace them with an electric vehicle-only charging hub.

Application for planning permission for the development on the company’s site in Fulham, West London, will be put forward at the end of this month, with the hope and expectation that the hub will be operational by the middle of next year.

The announcement comes as Shell celebrates the installation of its 50th UK EV charging point, and the installation of the first 150kW post on a service station. read more

Big Oil Fights For Its Life

Extracts from an article by Tsvetana Paraskova – Sep 30, 2019, 5:00 PM CDT

Just as Big Oil has returned to growing profits after the 2015-2016 price crash, the world’s largest oil companies are facing another formidable challenge amid growing calls from activists, shareholders, and institutional investors to start saving our planet.

The world’s largest oil firms already invest in green energy—including in wind, solar, biofuels, hydrogen, and electric vehicles (EVs) charging networks—but these alternatives are not their core business and will not be such for years, and probably decades, to come. read more

Sonali Paul: 22 Aug 2019

* ​Shell offers A$2.465 a share for ERM, 43% premium

* ​ERM board agrees deal, founder with 27% stake backs bid

* ​Shell targets Australia in global clean energy push

* ERM shares jump 42% (Adds Shell spending on power, sonnen background)

By Sonali Paul

MELBOURNE, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has made its first foray into Australia’s highly competitive power sector with a A$617 million ($419 million) takeover offer for ERM Power Ltd, the country’s no.2 energy retailer to businesses and industry. read more

Rooftop solar at Shell units in Europe, Asia to generate 7,500 MWh a year

The panels can result in the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions of about 4,500 tonne on a CO2-equivalent basis per year, equivalent to taking about 2,600 cars off the road for one year, a statement by the company said.

August 06, 2019, 07:42 IST

New Delhi: Lubricants major Shell on Monday said it is installing solar photovoltaic panels on the roofs of seven of its plants in India, China, Italy, Singapore and Switzerland, which would generate 7,500 MWh of power annually.

The panels can result in the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions of about 4,500 tonne on a CO2-equivalent basis per year, equivalent to taking about 2,600 cars off the road for one year, a statement by the company said.

Combined, they are expected to generate over 7,500 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity a year, it added. read more

Royal Dutch Shell Plc is spending about $2 billion a year on these technologies. The company says it wants to become the largest electrical power company in the world by the early 2030s.

By David Stringer: 3 August 2019, 01:00 BST

By 2050 solar and wind will supply almost half the world’s electricity, bringing to an end an energy era dominated by coal and gas, according to forecasts by BloombergNEF, Bloomberg LP’s primary research service on energy transition.

It can’t happen without storage. The switch from an electricity system supplied by large fossil fuel plants that run virtually uninterrupted to a more haphazard mix of smaller, intermittent renewable sources needs energy storage to overcome two key hurdles: using power harvested during the day to supply peak energy demand in the evening and ensuring there’s power available even when the wind drops or the sun goes down. read more

Shell boss welcomes ‘mobilisation of society’ as oil protests intensify

by Mark Lammey 01/08/2019, 10:32 am

Shell’s chief executive said today that he welcomed the “mobilisation” of society in the crusade to meet global climate change targets.

But Ben van Beurden said he could not agree with some of the more extreme methods used by militant activists in their protests against energy companies’ activities.

Mr van Beurden said demonstrations must not damage property or jeopardise the people’s safety.

Fellow energy giant BP suffered disruption to its plans for a well in June when Greenpeace activists clambered onto a Transocean rig in Cromarty Firth, then pursued it across the North Sea for several days in their Arctic Sunrise ship. read more

Why energy companies are still investing gasoline in the age of the electric vehicle

Marissa Luck July 30, 2019

Why energy companies are still investing gasoline in the age of the electric vehicle

Tucked away off a Houston highway and behind a tightly-secured check point, Royal Dutch Shell’s tree-lined campus is packed with hundreds of researchers working on the next technological breakthroughs that could transform how the Anglo-Dutch oil major powers the world economy through the energy transition.

As Shell’s largest research and development center, the 200-acre Houston campus has 1,500 employees and hundreds of contractors. They’re working on everything from formulating new biodiesel to advancing liquefied natural gas into transportation fuels. Their research also extends into something more tangible in the near term: how to improve gasoline. read more

Joe Tenebruso, The Motley Fool: Motley Fool July 19, 2019

Shell Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of international oil titan Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A), is investing in blockchain-focused energy company LO3. 

LO3 says it has developed a system that overcomes the challenge of integrating distributed energy resources into supply networks. The company says the system “promises to democratize the energy industry” by allowing people to both produce and consume electricity at their homes and businesses.

Shell’s investment will help LO3 scale its “blockchain-based energy networks around the world,” according to LO3 CEO Lawrence Orsini. “Energy is going through a revolution, with renewable distributed energy resources increasingly picking up market share — but to integrate them efficiently we need to reinvent our energy networks,” Orsini said. “These investments will help us accelerate the rollout of less carbon-intensive microgrids, which help all stakeholders benefit through distributed, decentralized, and decarbonized local energy transactions and demand response energy management on a building-by-building level.” read more

Ben van Beurden suggested Shell could work with Australia to press for credits for low-carbon LNG exports.

Angela Macdonald-Smith: Senior Resources Writer: Jul 16, 2019 — 7.00pm

Shell’s global chief executive Ben van Beurden has declared a global carbon price of about $US250 a tonne and “tens of thousands” of carbon capture and storage plants would be needed for the world to keep within the 2 degree warming goal.

Nature-based carbon offsets “to the tune of the Amazon” and a “massive” electrification of energy supply would also be needed he said in Sydney, ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison where energy and climate policy – and the troubled east coast gas market – were set to be discussed. read more

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC aims to become the world’s largest electricity company without necessarily generating very much power. Shell’s power strategy will be light on assets and focus on trading electricity generated by others. Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said at the company’s management day last month. “Of course we will be involved in generating electricity […] but we have a preference for being asset-light and balance our supply by providing electricity from other producers.” Oil and gas will remain Shell’s core business, the company says, but it is aiming to be the world’s largest electric power company by the early 2030s. read more

By Irina Slav – Jul 11, 2019, 3:00 PM CDT

Shell has furthered its stated commitment to cleaner electricity by investing in a U.S startup that has developed a blockchain-based platform for energy sharing.

The startup, LOW3 Energy, said in a press release earlier this week that Shell Ventures and Japanese Sumitomo had made “major investments” in its platform, which “represents a landmark moment for LO3 Energy as we begin to scale our blockchain-based energy networks around the world,” according to chief executive Lawrence Orsini. read more

Van Beurden told the New York Times in 2016 about how he had once come home to find one of his children crying inconsolably. He thought at first that it was because he was going out with his wife that evening, but he soon learned that she was upset because she had been learning about climate change at school.

By Joe Sandler Clarke: 19 June 2019

Ben van Beurden, the CEO of Shell, wants you to do your bit to solve climate change.

In early June, he told an audience of corporate bosses in London that we should eat fruit in season and recycle more.

“I have three daughters, they are all quite fashion conscious,” he explained. “I like to point out to them, having something new for every season four times a year is creating quite a significant ecological footprint, have you realised that? Because they are all about climate change.” read more

by Allister Thomas: 09/07/2019, 2:20 pm

Shell CEO Ben van Beurden has been unveiled as part of a global commission to help global progress on energy efficiency.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has unveiled the group, comprising of business executives, thought leaders and government ministers.

The IEA said energy efficiency will play a “central role” in reaching climate goals, potentially accounting for more than 40% of the necessary emissions cuts globally.

It could meanwhile save the world more than half a trillion US dollars in lower energy bills through 2040. read more

Shell, like Spain’s Repsol and France’s Total, is making deals along the electricity supply chain — from gas and renewable power generation to electric vehicle charging points, echoing its existing oil extraction-to-petrol-pump model. Public sentiment towards many oil and gas companies has soured as criticism of them for not taking sufficient responsibility for their role in global warming has intensified. After selling petrol and diesel at the pump, they are now trying to penetrate the market for household energy supply. READ THE FULL FT ARTICLE read more