GE Invests $600M in US facilities, ORIX Sells Greenko Stake

This week we discuss GE Vernova's $600 million investment in its US
facilities, ORIX selling its stake in Greenko to AM Green Power,
and a 70 GW wind and solar project in Western Australia seeks
federal approval. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to
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YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news,
lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil
Totaro, discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will
shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by
IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit
www.intelstor.com. Allen Hall: So this week, Phil, a number of
really interesting moves in renewable energy. First off is the
Western Green Energy Hub has submitted its proposal for federal
environmental approval in Western Australia, someplace we're going
to be pretty soon. The project plans to install 70 gigawatts of
wind and solar capacity through 35 power nodes. Now, each node will
include 2 to 3 gigawatts of generation and about 1. 5 gigawatts of
electrolyzer. Phil, Western Australia has a number of renewable
projects planned. What makes this one unique? Well, Phil Totaro:
it's the first one. They're Allen Hall: going to Phil Totaro: do
it. Yeah. Because of all these mega projects that have been
proposed throughout Australia. There's some in Queensland and South
Australia, and I think one in Victoria as well. And what we're
talking about is something that's like, 30, 40, 50, 60, in this
case, 70 gigawatts worth of generation capacity. That's almost. I
mean, 70 gigawatts is almost what the entire Australian grid
produces on an annual basis. So what they're doing with this is
they're saying, all right, it's going to accommodate some,
increased electricity demand. Although the, the amount that, that
it's going to increase is, is modest compared to the, the amount
they're going to be generating. But as you mentioned, they're going
to add all these, um, Electrolyzer is to be able to produce
hydrogen on a lot of these mega projects in Australia that have
been proposed. That's their intent is to, build these these things
with, turbines that are going to be at least 10. Megawatts each, if
not bigger. The reality with this is it is the first of these kind
of mega projects to, to get into this environmental permitting and
consent queue. And so this is the start of what could be, a pretty
major undertaking. Joel Saxum: Something to think about here too,
is this is in Western Australia. So if you know anything about
Western or if you know anything about Australia's grid, it's not
very well connected East to West. And the major demand centers are
all in the East. You have Perth in the West, of course, but that
Western side of Australia, the grid doesn't need much energy to
support it. It doesn't have a whole lot of demand compared to the
rest of the, or the, to the Eastern parts of the country. So at the
end of the day, 70 gigawatts is great, but the This is going to be
just a, not just, but for the most part, a green hydrogen project,
right? They don't need 70 gigawatts of clean energy to fulfill the
grid needs over there. That doesn't demand that much. So most of
this energy was used for hydrogen, green hydrogen creation. And
that's one thing that Australia does really, really, really well.
They have a lot of natural resources and they know how to export.
So you, you look to see this project. Project creating a green
energy hub and a green energy powerhouse or green hydrogen
powerhouse out of the country of Australia. And now you just got to
find offtake. Allen Hall: Right, Phil. Where is this green hydrogen
headed to? Phil Totaro: We'll see, because they actually don't,
that's one of the challenges for this project commercially, is they
don't necessarily have the, the full demand fulfillment. They will
probably send some of it to well, actually, they might send some of
it to China. They've been talking about exporting some hydrogen to
some of the other Southeast Asian countries that are their, their
kind of most adjacent neighbors. But that's actually an important
consideration that I don't think they've fully addressed yet. Allen
Hall: Next up, ORIX Corporation is selling its 20 percent stake in
GreenCo Energy Holdings to AM Green Power BV for 1.46 Billion U. S.
dollars. The Japanese company will also invest in convertible notes
issued by AM Green Luxembourg, the parent company. Now, Greenco
Energy operates about seven and a half gigawatts of renewable
energy capacity, including solar, wind, and hydropower projects,
and is developing large scale pump storage power facilities. All
right, Phil, again, another huge financial transaction here
involving a Japanese company. Obviously Japan is heavily involved
in things like in the UK at the minute, offshore, floating wind.
There's a lot of activity going around there. What is the activity
behind this acquisition? Phil Totaro: Yeah, well, for those that
aren't familiar, ORIX actually also owns El Juan Energy which is
big renewable energy project developer in, in Europe, Spain in
particular. The reason that ORIX got into both of these companies
El Juan and now that they're divesting GreenCo they, they wanted
to, to plow some money behind renewable energy projects. But the
fact that they're taking this portfolio projects that Greenco has
and selling it off for a rather stout amount of money, I have to
say is, reflective of the fact that they think they can cash out.
on something that's kind of, in, in high demand, which are assets
in India that are operational or potentially in need of repowering
because they're starting to get their act together over there and
getting a policy framework in place in each one of the states in
India to, to actually get repowering projects undertaken. Great
acquisition and good deal on, on behalf of ORIX. They remain
invested at this point in Elowan Energy. And ORIX, may end up
redeploying their capital, the 1. 46 billion in. Other renewable
energy investments as, as they decide to move forward. Joel Saxum:
I think that's the interesting thing here, Phil, exactly like you
said, what's OREC's going to do next? Because, none of us are flies
on the walls in these, in these conference rooms or in these
strategy rooms behind, what's an evergreen investment, which kind
of investment has an end date on it. What are we trying to do for a
structure here within our investment vehicle? We don't know what
that is. So there may have just been a date where OREC said, Hey.
Beginning of 2025, we're going to sell this thing no matter what,
and either, I'm not saying that's what happened, but that could be
what happened. Either way, ORIX is sitting, going to be sitting on
a pile of cash come March and it would be really interesting to see
what they do with it. Allen Hall: They don't have a pile of debt
that they're paying off, Phil, do they? Joel Saxum: No. Phil
Totaro: They do not. Allen Hall: Okay. So this is, so this is a
pure acquisition, moving cash around, finding more active markets
for their deployable capital. Phil Totaro: Yes, and keep in mind
too that they could be waiting for, making additional investments
in Europe or the US. Or, I mean, they could go down into Brazil or
who knows where with, with their next move. That's the one
advantage of having the pile of cash is that even in a high
interest rate environment, you have choices as far as where you
want to deploy capital. And, You'll be able to selectively pick
markets for either a strategic investment in a local developer or
potentially acquiring a portfolio that, that might be available or
building new greenfield. So there's, there's a lot of strategy
options on the table for them to be able to move forward. So would
you say Joel Saxum: they're sitting in the conference room right
now, looking to see what country has the best political framework
to invest in? Phil Totaro: Well, and not for nothing, but countries
that are not the United States at the moment have gotten the
message of, hey, we need to make ourselves look a lot more
attractive to get more foreign direct investment Allen Hall: at
this point. Speaking of investment, GE Vernova will invest 600
million in its U. S. facilities over two years, creating about 1,
500 jobs. Now, this plan includes 300 million for its gas power
operations, with about 160 million going. to their Greenville,
South Carolina facility. The company will invest about 50 million
for nuclear operations in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is a
beautiful place, by the way, 100 million for wind manufacturing
facilities and another 100 million for their advanced research
center near me in New York. Now, the investments are part of a
larger 9 billion global investment plan through 2028. So, Phil,
some of the money that has come into Vernova particularly for some
AI gas powered turbine projects is going to be reinvested into the
company and to stabilize different parts of it and try to improve
efficiencies. It sounds like where they're going. Is that going to
have an immediate return on investments? Like, are we expecting the
stock price to bump up on this or is this more a longer term play
to stabilize the company and make it profitable in 2028, 2030? Phil
Totaro: Yeah, it's actually, that's a really great question because
they're. likely to make investments now that are,