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02|18
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Issue title:

Interview with Gundolf Schweppe

Publication date:
06.02.2018
In this issue:

the topic of the month is once again an interview, this time with Gundolf Schweppe, head of the Uniper Energy Sales management board. The interview continues a series of interviews with managing directors from sales companies that have their roots in the traditional gas industry. The different strategies to adjust the business model to the changes in the market environment are interesting. What amazed me in the interview with Schweppe was the emphasis of a new strengthening of ties with Stadtwerke, so-called sales partnerships (Vertriebspartnerschaften). For this purpose, Uniper has developed new products – but read all about it yourselves.

A topic in which the urgency is currently not clearly visible is the Groningen gas production and the impact on Germany. On January 8 there was an earthquake in the Groningen region, it was the strongest there has been in seven years.

Interview with Gundolf Schweppe, head of the Uniper Energy Sales management board

Uniper Energy Sales aims to introduce new products to strengthen the sales partnership with utilities. “Sales partnership (Vertriebspartnerschaft)” is a very traditional concept from the good old days of the German gas industries with strong ties between the supplier and the utility beyond the pure gas supply. Joint products and marketing campaigns as well as the joint handling of larger industrial customers were the core of these partnerships. Due to the variety of options to organise gas procurement, these relations have weakened in the last years. However, the concept of full service contracts (Vollversorgungsverträge) still has its importance although these contracts are now completely different than, let us say, around ten years ago. The discussion about whether these kinds of modern full-service contracts or structural procurement is the better option is from time to time led in this publication (see latest ener|gate Gasmarkt 11/17). But that is not the topic of the interview with Gundolf Schweppe, head of the Uniper Energy Sales management board. One topic is the new products that Uniper thinks are good concepts to revive the sales partnerships and the second topic is more broadly the Uniper sales strategy and sales organisation.

ener|gate Gasmarkt: Mr Schweppe, you offer private customers a “gas flat rate” that is independent of the effective gas consumption. Can you explain the product?

Mr Schweppe: First of all it is very important to emphasise that our customer is not the final user but the Stadtwerk. We are mainly a wholesale company. We want to strengthen the proven partnership with utilities in a sustainable way and want to position ourselves with the new products as a procurement partner of utilities. The first example is our white label offer about “Uniper Direkt” …

Framework ConditionsBDI study on climate policy

A study made on behalf of the general association of the German industry (BDI) received a lot of attention. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a consultancy, and prognos, a consultancy and think-tank, made the study. Presumably there is one main reason for the large amount of attention: With the study, “the industry” accepts the target of an 80 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions until 2050. There will be a bit more about that later. First: The indicator for the amount of attention received was the large number of public comments from associations, among them a number of environmental lobbying groups. The main message from the comments was: The study is an important contribution from the industry, but the industry must now deliver and the 95 per cent target should not be forgotten. From a gas perspective, the industry association Zukunft Erdgas and FNB Gas, the association of the TSOs, published statements. Timm Kehler, the CEO of Zukunft Erdgas, highlights the study’s proposal to support innovative technologies. Among these technologies are power-to-gas as well as gas-fuelled fuel cells. FNB Gas underlines the importance of sector coupling which, according to the analysis of the study’s authors, will play a major role in achieving the climate target. One element in the study is the potential larger role for more efficient conversion procedures from power to hydrogen, methane or liquid fuels (power-to-x). FNB Gas itself promotes such a development path.