E.ON

After energy generation and distribution separated through regulatory unbundling, E.ON became Europe's circulatory system—moving electrons but not producing them. The company operates networks serving 50 million customers across 30 countries, investing €42 billion from 2024-2028 with €34 billion dedicated to Energy Networks and 70% concentrated in Germany. This infrastructure spending targets distribution grid upgrades for a future where 80% of German electricity comes from variable renewables by 2030 (already exceeding 60% in 2024). The strategy reflects ecosystem-engineering: building the connective tissue that enables intermittent solar and wind to substitute for steady fossil baseload. E.ON's 2023 adjusted EBITDA hit €9.4 billion, 35% above prior year, driven by network expansion and smart meter rollouts. The business model demonstrates low metabolic rate but high survival probability—regulated returns on capital invested create predictable cash flows while avoiding generation's commodity price volatility. This is K-selection: slow growth, stable environment, investing in durability over reproduction speed. Yet networks face resource-allocation dilemmas as electrification (heat pumps, EVs) collides with distributed generation (rooftop solar). Bidirectional power flow, voltage management, and congestion costs require €5 billion annual investments just to maintain homeostasis. E.ON's Energy Infrastructure Solutions segment (€5 billion investment 2024-2028) targets industrial customers and municipalities, providing what mycorrhizal networks do for forests: connecting producers and consumers through underground infrastructure that surfaces invisible. The company's fate depends on regulatory frameworks—Federal Network Agency revenue caps determine returns, while political decisions on grid fees, electricity taxes, and renewable integration set the evolutionary landscape. Like vasculature in a growing organism, E.ON must expand capacity ahead of demand, betting that electrification's phase-transition actually occurs. The risk: building circulatory infrastructure for metabolic demand that fails to materialize, leaving stranded assets like capillaries in necrotic tissue.