Fossil Fuel Write-downs Leave Europe's Big Utilities at a Loss

摘要

The financial cost of revaluing, or writing down, fossil-fuel power stations — often built or bought during an aggressive but badly timed acquisition spree ahead of the 2008 financial crisis — has pushed German RWE, one of Europe's largest utilities, into the red for the first time in 60 years. It made a net loss of ?2.8 billion ($3.9 billion) in 2013 after a write-down of ?4.6 billion. A bigger peer, French GDF Suez, the world's largest utility, booked a massive ?14.9 billion write-down and made a bigger loss of ?9.3 billion.