"Based on the past year, I see that Europe has taken a huge step forward towards pragmatism" to improve its rapidly deteriorating competitiveness, but with 90% exposure to gas imports, it has to be very sensible in the face of geopolitical changes, Benjamin Lakatos told Portfolio in an interview. MET Group's CEO believes that European leaders need to apply serious changes in three to five areas.

At the turn of the year, the giant Swiss wholesale trader of gas and electricity, MET Group, entered the Czech market. Its revenues last year were around half a trillion CZK. However, households won't encounter it for now, as the company primarily targets industrial companies.

The Swiss energy company MET, previously primarily active in trading, is expanding its generation business with renewable energies. The utility has also built up a project pipeline in Germany. energate spoke to Christian Hürlimann, Renewables CEO at MET Group, about its ambitions in the German market, the challenges of concluding PPAs and the opportunities in the storage market.