The big four (energy supply)

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The areas of influence of the Big Four (before the unbundling of transmission network operation and electricity generation)

The big four stand for the four energy / electricity supply companies (EVU) with the highest turnover in Germany: E.ON , RWE , EnBW and Vattenfall .

The big four also include numerous subsidiaries, such as B. eprimo , E wiesim (each 100 percent owned by E.ON), NaturEnergiePlus (100 percent owned by EnBW), Yello Strom (100 percent owned by EnBW) and others.

As part of the liberalization of the energy markets in the European Union , in the course of the 1990s to the early 2000s, “The Big Four” emerged from what were formerly eight electricity supply companies. They directly and indirectly control around 80 percent of the German electricity market. These companies had an additional dominant position in the market because they not only combined a large part of electricity generation until the implementation of the EU's Third Energy Package, but were also responsible for transporting electricity via the transmission network . Hence, both journalistic and scientific literature speak of a stream oligopoly . The Monopoly Commission also referred to these four electricity companies as oligopoly on several occasions.

The share of these companies in plants for generating renewable energies was in the single-digit percentage range in 2013.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ www.focus.de: Criticism of the big four
  2. ↑ www.wiwo.de: Politics of the energy transition is ruining large suppliers
  3. ↑ www.bpb.de: The big four
  4. ↑ www.energieverbrauch.de: The long arm of the energy industry
  5. ↑ www.robinwood: The Power of the Big Four! (PDF file; 107 kB)
  6. ↑ stern.de: Energy oligopoly - four corporations share the market , June 1, 2006.
  7. ↑ welt.de: The power of the energy companies is broken , September 5, 2013.
  8. ↑ Werner Marnette: Energy Prices Endanger Germany as an Industrial Location , Wirtschaftsdienst, Vol. 84, Iss. 11, pages 679-683
  9. ↑ Bernhard Nagel, Barbara Volmert: Sustainable Electricity and Gas Management in the Light of Competition Law , Edition Sigma, 2010, page 11.
  10. ↑ Justus Haucap: Does Germany need a capacity market for a secure power supply? , DICE Regulatory Policy Perspectives, No. 51, 2013, page 5.
  11. ↑ Monopolies Commission: Competition and Regulation in the Energy Industry: Reform of the Energy Industry Act , excerpt from main report XVI (2004/2005), number 22.
  12. ↑ www.t-online.de: Energiewende puts the big utilities in a headlock
  13. ↑ www.greenpeace.de: Investments by the four large energy companies in renewable energies (PDF file; 1.0 MB)
  14. ↑ www.ioew.de: Investments by the four large energy groups in renewable energies