Electricity house of the year: ENGIE

In times of volatility and uncertainty, which the energy market saw over the previous 12 months on recurring outbreaks of Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fears over rising global inflation and interest rates, ENGIE’s Global Energy Management and Sales’ (GEMS’) more than 800 large accounts and 190,000-plus business-to-business clients can rely on long-term expertise and know-how. “To meet clients’ ever-growing demand for competitive, low-carbon, reliable energy, we leverage 20-plus years of financial and physical expertise to provide best-in-class services in risk management, market access and global energy commodities supply, and we developed an integrated approach to decarbonisation to support our clients’ affordable transition to net zero at every step of their journey,” says Varun Gujral, chief executive officer, Asia-Pacific (Apac), ENGIE GEMS.

Varun Gujral, ENGIE

A global reference in low-carbon energy and services, ENGIE this year is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the trading floor in Singapore, which has driven GEMS’ growth across Apac. With trading floors in Singapore and Melbourne, the company’s business includes risk management and market access to provide its clients best-in-class hedging services in power, gas, oil and emissions derivatives. It also focuses on global commodities, offering physical liquefied natural gas, and biomass trading and supply to its clients and ENGIE’s portfolio.

Since 2015, GEMS has been active in most liberalised and liquid Apac power markets, specifically Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, and has been bringing additional liquidity to Japan. It continued expanding its power trading business, successfully building up from its participation in the first trade in the launch of EEX Japanese Power Futures in 2021.

“ENGIE continues to support the development of electricity markets throughout Asia and we strive to help our clients manage their power trading needs in rapidly evolving and increasingly globally linked markets,” says Ben Hanrahan, head of power trading, Apac, ENGIE GEMS.

Further pursuing its decarbonisation efforts in Apac, ENGIE launched a local green solutions desk to support clients’ transitions to net zero across the whole region, offering green corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs), renewable energy certificates (RECs), carbon offsets and green gas. For corporate green PPAs, ENGIE’s focus remains in line with its key territories of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia and India, along with the Republic of Korea and Japan. For RECs, it covers the whole region and main product offerings (international RECs, the Tradable Instrument for Global Renewables, large-scale generation certificates (LGCs), and so on) and is looking to expand its product suite for new client demand and as local REC markets liberalise.

Additionally, ENGIE GEMS provides an asset management service to the Group and affiliated assets, for both thermal and renewable. Overall, in 2021, ENGIE GEMS traded 16,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy in the global markets and supplied more than 180TWh of power worldwide.

Ben Hanrahan, ENGIE

ENGIE additionally increased its renewables capacity by 3 gigawatts (GW) in 2021. In line with the company’s objective of accelerating the transition to a carbon-neutral economy, ENGIE lowered its carbon footprint and developed renewable energy worldwide with large-scale investments – notably securing 9GW of renewables commissioned over the 2019–21 target period.

“This gradual expansion of the scope to new geographies highlights ENGIE GEMS’ commitment to accompanying its clients across multiple markets to help them meet their green power needs and further achieve their sustainability targets,” says Gujral.

Over the past year, ENGIE expanded its organisational and regional footprint, integrating its teams in Australia within GEMS to ensure maximum efficiency. This move also ensured ENGIE’s global risk management and trading best practices will be applied in Australia to manage the existing portfolio of thermal and renewable assets, along with the expanding green corporate PPA business.

In Australia, ENGIE is aiming to develop 2GW of renewable assets and renewable power by 2030, supported by innovative corporate PPAs structured by GEMS, which will help the company’s clients achieve their emissions reductions. GEMS is one of the leading corporate PPA providers – its vertically integrated renewables business signed 21 PPAs with downstream clients, notably a recent seven-year, 1TWh (plus LGCs) multistate PPA with property investment management company Charter Hall.

In addition, the company looks to continuously simplify access to energy markets in a competitive and trouble-free mode, thanks to its digital services. For example, ENGIE has further developed the capabilities of its digital platforms that put its expertise at its clients’ fingertips. This includes ENGIE Global Market Access for electronic trading and execution on most vanilla products, power and gas traceability, and certification via blockchain with The Energy Origin, as well as EnergyScan, its platform dedicated to market intelligence. 

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