Solar Enery Powers Joint Venture

Compiled ByDeborah Austin Shell Renewables Ltd. -- a business of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group -- and Siemens Solar GmbH, a joint venture of Siemens AG and E.ON Energie AG, have reached agreement to form a joint venture of their solar energy businesses. The firms say such cooperation is necessary to execute their growth targets for solar energy. The new joint venture -- Siemens and Shell Solar GmbH -- should begin operation in April 2001. It will have two managing directors: Gernot Oswald, current managing director of Siemens Solar, and Philippe de Renzy Martin, COO of Shell Solar. Shareholdings: Seimens AG, 34%; E.ON Energie AG, 33%; and Shell, 33%. Siemens AG, an 83.4-billion-euro (US$77.3 billion) electrical engineering and electronics company, is headquartered in Munich, Germany; E.ON Energie AG, a 72.4-billion-euro (US$67.1 billion) energy service provider and specialty chemicals group, in Dusseldorf, Germany. The US$191.5 billion Royal Dutch/Shell Group is a joint venture between Royal Dutch Petroleum -- headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands -- and London-headquartered "Shell" Transport and Trading.