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HOUSTON — Shell said on Tuesday it will begin selling electricity generated from renewable sources to residents and businesses in Texas, in a move that brings the European oil company’s transition to green energy to the US market.

The announcement highlights the widening gap between the strategies of European and US oil companies as elected leaders, and consumers demand that the energy industry do more to tackle climate change. European companies including Shell, BP and TotalEnergies, and US companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron are seeking to expand into renewable energy, EV charging and other fast-growing businesses as they focus mostly on oil and gas while investing in carbon capture from industrial plants. biofuels.

Shell, which currently has electrical businesses in nine countries, plans to double the amount of electricity it sells by 2030. Headquartered in London, the company is Europe’s largest oil and gas company by revenue and operates in more than 70 countries. including gas stations, refineries, and oil and gas fields.

The company said it aims to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. While many businesses have the same goal, Exxon and Chevron have not set similarly ambitious climate goals.

Executives at Shell said the new energy business in Texas will offer customers greater access to wind and solar power, which is increasingly abundant in the state. It will also provide free charging to electric vehicle drivers at night and on weekends when electricity demand is low.

“Our goal is to reduce our carbon intensity,” said Glenn Wright, Shell’s vice president of renewable energy and energy solutions in the Americas. We need to take concrete steps, especially in this area where we can bring our customers together with renewable and cleaner energy solutions.”

Shell said it will eventually expand its retail electricity business to other parts of the United States, including the Eastern and Southern states, which are part of the country’s largest regional transmission system, the PJM power market. The company said it makes sense to start in Texas because more than 26 million of the state’s approximately 29 million residents are served by a single grid operated by the Texas Electricity Reliability Council.

About a dozen states—most in the Northeast—and the District of Columbia have competitive retail electricity markets. Again Relatively few individuals have benefited from competitive markets.The Department of Energy has found that the vast majority of industrial and commercial customers go through the built-in utility in their region.

Texas and New Jersey benefited most from lower prices in competitive retail markets. Texas has the most competitive electricity market in the country, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Many individuals and businesses oriented towards competitive markets tend to choose companies that offer renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydropower. Big tech companies operating energy-hungry data centers have led the push for green energy.

Other major European oil companies have also sought ways to enter the energy business. TotalEnergies of France said last month that it has acquired a 50 percent stake in US wind and solar power company Clearway Energy for $2.4 billion.

“This is an important, serious move, but it’s also not a surprise,” said Michael Webber, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “They can see the future like everyone else and they don’t deny climate change,” he said.

Shell’s investments in clean energy are small compared to the company’s oil and gas operations, but executives have said they plan to use some of their fossil fuel profits to start new businesses with climate change in mind.

Shell hopes to attract customers by offering incentives. Homeowners with solar panels will receive a retail electricity fee for the excess power they send to the grid, which residents pay utilities for electricity. In Texas, compensation varies for the power consumers send to the grid. Some utilities offer lower wholesale prices to consumers, while others provide the higher retail price Shell promises.

“This is a huge growth opportunity and there will be competition between revolving oil companies like Shell and tech companies like Tesla, Google and Apple,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, general manager of the Tufts Climate Policy Lab. Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “The irony is that it must be coming from existing services, but generally speaking, they’ve been very resilient.”

Consumers purchasing electricity from Shell will receive fixed prices for a short period of time, such as six months or five years, over the life of their contract. The company will derive the energy it sells to its customers from wind and solar facilities around Texas.

Shell’s change includes expanding investments in renewable energy, energy trading and electric vehicle charging stations. In recent years, Shell has acquired a solar and wind power company in India, acquired a wind farm developer in Australia, and invested in a partnership with a Chinese company to develop charging stations in Asia and Europe. It bought a battery supplier that developed its own power networks in competition with utilities based in Germany. It builds hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, owns wind farms, and buys an energy trading company that sells energy to businesses.

Despite its investments in renewable energy, some critics argued that Shell was not acting fast enough. In a lawsuit filed by an environmental group, last year a court in the Netherlands ordered the company formerly known as Royal Dutch Shell to drastically cut its emissions to offset its role in climate change.

Shell said it would appeal the decision and take climate change seriously. The company has pledged to reduce oil production and cut carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030. Last year it sold oil fields in the Permian basin stretching between Texas and New Mexico for $9.5 billion, paying most of it to its shareholders. dividends and share repurchases.

Carbon dioxide emissions by the company’s power generation or carbon intensity have dropped only modestly in recent years, according to an annual study. sustainability report. Shell’s carbon intensity rose in 2021 after falling sharply in 2020, when the pandemic reduced demand for fossil fuels.

Shell executive Mr. Wright said the company aims to become a more diverse energy business. “We are an energy company,” he said. “So we’re not giving up oil and gas, but we’re changing the portfolio mix.”

Clifford Krauss reported from Houston and Ivan Penn from New York.