RWE

RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company is the world’s number two in offshore wind power and Europe’s third largest in renewable energy. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, RWE Group was ranked as the 297th -largest public company in the world.

RWE (German Multinational Energy Company)

RWE (Empresa Multinacional Alemana de Energía)

The company was founded in Essen in 1898, as Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk Aktiengesellschaft (Rhenish-Westphalian Power Plant) by Elektrizitäts-Actien-Gesellschaft vorm. W. Lahmeyer & Company (EAG) and others. The full name was used until 1990 when it was renamed to RWE AG. Its first power station started operating in Essen in 1900. In 1902, EAG sold its shares to a consortium formed by Ruhr industrialists Hugo Stinnes and August Thyssen.
Before World War I, municipalities of Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, and Gelsenkirchen, became shareholders in RWE. By the 1920s, Bonn, Cologne, Krefeld, Duisburg, and Düsseldorf also became shareholders and municipalities owned the majority of RWE’s shares. In 1925, the Prussian state became a shareholder in RWE. In 1929, municipalities and the Rhine Province combined their shareholdings into a holding company Kommunale Aufnahmegruppe für Aktien GmbH.

RWE (Deutsches Multinationales Energieunternehmen)

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莱茵集团（德国跨国能源公司）

In 1932, RWE acquired a majority stake in the coal company Rheinische Aktiengesellschaft für Braunkohlenbergbau (Rheinbraun). In 1936, it acquired Niederrheinische Braunkohlenwerke AG, an operator of the Frimmersdorf Power Plant. On 1 May 1933, the executive board including Ernst Henke joined the NSDAP as a unified body.
Since autumn 1943, the Essen state police had been investigating Wilhelm Ricken, RWE’s technical director and designated general director, for “subversion of the military“. The then First Mayor of Essen, Just Dillgardt, who was also second chairman of RWE’s supervisory board, had reported Ricken to the state police. Previously, he had received a tip from the then commercial director and fellow board member of Ricken, Friedrich Praedel. This “board member” of RWE is said to have pushed Dillgardt to press charges. Wilhelm Ricken was then arrested on 20 October 1943, and sentenced to death on 8 March 1944, by the Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court), partly because of his statement that “the war would end like 1918″. On 2 May 1944, Wilhelm Ricken was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee. In 2015, a “stumbling block” was placed at this final address in Essen to commemorate Ricken’s fate.

RWE (Немецкая многонациональная энергетическая компания)

RWE (Société Énergétique Multinationale Allemande)

During World War II, the infrastructure owned by RWE was severely damaged but mostly repaired by 1948. In 1952, the company was excluded from the Allies’ control. In 1957, RWE acquired the coal company Neurath AG. RWE and the Bavarian state-owned ‘Bayernwerk’ joined forces to build Germany’s first industrial nuclear reactor. The Kahl experimental nuclear power plant (15 megawatts), constructed right next to RWE’s Dettingen hard coal fired power plant, supplied its first electricity in 1962. Until its closure in 1985, this plant would serve as a source of important findings which supported the design and operation of commercial nuclear reactors.
RWE’s nuclear operations started in 1961, when RWE and Bayernwerk (later part of E.ON) started to build the first German industrial nuclear reactor: the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant. In 1962, they started to build the Gundremmingen Nuclear Power Plant. In 1965, the at the request of the surrounding municipalities, the Karnap power plant in Essen started to burn domestic waste.