Shell faces anger over the acquisition of an Australian green energy retailer

Royal Dutch Shell faces protests over the acquisition of green energy retailer Powershop Australia, threatening customers to switch to other renewable energy providers to avoid becoming fossil fuel company customers.

Shell will partner with the Infrastructure Capital Group on Monday to acquire Meridian Energy’s Australian electricity business, which has more than 185,000 customers, for A $ 729 million ($ 526 million) for household electricity in Australia. He said it is expanding into the market. The transaction is expected to close in early 2022.

Activist group Environment Victoria said Wednesday that it had terminated its six-year partnership with Powershop Australia because if Shell became owned by the business, it could no longer be maintained.

“You can’t expect to hit the green paint a bit with a multi-billion dollar contaminated machine and ignore it,” said Jonathan La Nauze, CEO of Environment Victoria.

Powershop customers have accessed social media saying they have switched to other green energy providers to recommend their competitors.

“I’m very sorry to hear that @PowershopAus has sold out to @Shell … Thank you for the previous service, but today I switched to another provider,” Jen Basham said on Twitter.

Powershop said on social media on Monday that “customer and global commitments have not changed” while ownership has changed.

The deal states that the company will maintain its ties to wind and hydro assets through power purchase agreements and that its energy will still be 100% carbon offset.

A Shell Australia spokeswoman said the company has promised to halve its absolute emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. ..

“We look forward to working with Powershop’s customers to support their energy decarbonization ambitions,” said a Shell spokeswoman.