Eon eyes closure of gas-fired power plant Eon, Germany's biggest utility by revenues, is considering the closure of one of Europe's most modern gas-fired power stations as ructions on the European electricity market forced it to slash its profit forecast for the current year by almost one-third. The rapid growth of renewable energy sources had made coal and, especially, gas-fired power stations "largely uneconomic to operate," the company said. It forecast underlying net profit would sink to €2.2bn-€2.6bn in 2013, down from an initial estimate, published last year, of €3.2bn-€3.6bn, and from a profit of €4.3bn in 2012. "We can't just continue operating conventional plants in the hope something will change," said Johannes Teyssen, chief executive. Eon would decide on the shuttering of its Irsching plant in Bavaria in March and other plants could follow, he said, adding rivals in France and the UK had already announced similar moves. The German government's ambition to replace nuclear power with renewable energy sources by 2022 has added to the boom in "green" energy investments, which has been fed by price guarantees going back a decade. A plunge in wholesale electricity prices has eroded the profits of conventional plants. Eon said the "unmanaged growth" of renewable energy sources and their privileged access to the market was forcing fossil-fuel plants to spend more time idle, with gas plants suffering more than coal-fired ones because of higher raw material costs. Mr Teyssen called on the German government to come up with "fair rules" for power generators that were willing to keep conventional power plants on standby - vital for quickly covering peak demand for electricity from industry in the mornings and the afternoons. "We need to treat conventional power plants sensibly," he said. The poorer outlook for this year - flagged in November when Eon dropped its original forecast for 2013 - led Eon to pledge more savings and the hope that an asset sale programme could reach €20bn in volume, €5bn more than planned. Capital expenditure would also fall from €6bn a year to €4bn-4.5bn beyond 2014. What can we still afford to do? Not everything, but some things still," Mr Teyssen said, pledging to keep his focus on growth areas - renewable energy, decentralised generation, and more recent investments in the US, Russia, Brazil and Turkey. Mr Teyssen's grim outlook for 2013 stood in contrast to preliminary results for last year. Underlying net profit adjusted for one-off effects soared 72 per cent to €4.3bn. Eon's 2011 results had been hammered by big write-offs following Berlin's decision quickly to close eight of 17 nuclear plants after nuclear disaster in Japan. Eon's success in agreeing lower prices for long-term contracts for Russian and Norwegian gas also helped produce "positive results" for 2012, Mr Teyssen said. But he warned they should not distract from problems. If the situation on the European power market did not change, Eon would start to close gas-fired plants.