(Bloomberg) -- Andreas Schell unexpectedly resigned as chief executive of German utility Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG less than halfway into his three-year term after clashing with the supervisory board over strategy.

Schell, 54, who took charge of EnBW in November 2022, is leaving the post with immediate effect on Friday, the Karlsruhe-based company said in a statement. The supervisory board accepted his decision at an extraordinary meeting convened earlier in the day.

“Despite intensive discussions, it has not been possible to reach an agreement on the future strategic direction of the company in recent months,” Supervisory Board Chairman Lutz Feldmann said.

Schell, who previously headed Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG, made headlines last year, when he pushed for an exit from coal in 2028, seven years earlier than the company had originally planned. Among Germany’s largest energy providers, EnBW has been working to transform three of its coal-fired-power plants to run entirely on green hydrogen.

Germany, hit with soaring energy prices in the midst of a transition to renewable sources after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, aims to phase out coal in 2030. That deadline may be at risk, EnBW’s rival RWE AG warned last year, unless planned tenders for hydrogen-ready gas power plants don’t start in 2024.

EnBW’s board appointed Georg Stamatelopoulos, currently responsible for Sustainable Generation Infrastructure, as Schell’s successor. It also promoted finance chief Thomas Kusterer to become his deputy.

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