Major utility E.On has powered up a new energy trading division in several European markets which it says will leverage the company’s renewable generation.

E.On confirmed that it had started trading in the British, German and Swedish markets as of 1 July 2017 under the guise of ‘Market Operations’.

Sven Otten, senior VP for energy management at E.ON SE, said the launch will also allow the company to take advantage of “flexibilities” created by their customers’ decentralised generation and storage capacities.

E.ON’s solar-plus-storage business is now live in both Germany and the UK and has been the recipient of a significant marketing push as it looks to grow size and scale, including a tie-up with Google’s Sunroof tool.

“In this way we provide the commercial interface into the commodity and network services markets, while at the same time supporting our growing customer solutions business,” Otten added.

A team of 20 ‘experts’ has been assembled in each of the three countries and they’ve been tasked with brokering deals in power, natural gas and green certificates on their respective markets.

E.On said this would mainly be done for periods of three years in advance down to individual hours for intraday trading, with all activities designed to hedge E.On’s own price and volume risks.

The UK launch is especially interesting considering the widely-acknowledged volatility within the country’s power market. It’s a factor that was blamed for a series of independent utility collapses early this year and in late 2016, with industry professionals having fired warnings that a major utility could fall foul of the instability.

E.On had previously maintained an energy trading business until September last year, but this was spun off within the company’s disposal of Uniper.