(Bloomberg) — French power-equipment maker Schneider Electric SE leapfrogged the country’s largest oil and gas producer TotalEnergies SE in market capitalization, a sign of the accelerating shift from fossil fuels toward electrification. Schneider’s shares have risen 35% this year, boosting its market capitalization to about €142 billion ($158 billion) in Paris and making it the fourth-largest company company on France’s CAC40 stock index. The value of the maker of everything from switchgears to software that manages grids and factories is now only surpassed in France by luxury fashion groups and cosmetics giants LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Hermes International SCA, and L’Oreal SA.
Over the same period, TotalEnergies’s value has slipped 5% to about €140 billion, reflecting lower global energy prices amid doubts about the strength of demand. “It’s the energy of the future versus the energy of the past,” said Gilles Guibout, head of European equities at Axa Investment Managers in Paris. “We’re electrifying the world and Schneider is at the heart of that structural trend.
” The rise of Schneider is a reminder that the fight against climate change and the boom in artificial intelligence requires massive investments in renewables, more sophisticated power grids, and data centers. Governments in Europe, the US and China are helping manufacturers, businesses and households reduce their emissions with cleaner heating systems, electrical processes.