Investments in Indian Renewables, Enel €38B in Grid & Renewables

This week on News Flash, we discuss CIP and AMPIN Energy
Transition's $300 million investment in Indian renewables, Enel
investing €38 billion in grid and renewables through 2027, and the
Long Beach Harbor's $14 million match for their upcoming state
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https://www.windaustralia.com 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. intelstore. com. Allen Hall: Copenhagen Infrastructure
Partners and Ampen Energy Transition are investing 300 million in
joint equity for Indian renewables. The partnership will enable
approximately 2 gigawatts of renewable energy projects across
India. Their combined portfolio will include solar, wind, hybrid
and storage technologies. Now, this new deal creates massive 2. 7
to 3 billion dollars of renewable energy assets as a base in India.
Now, Phil, India is a huge market at the minute, and a lot of
renewable projects are moving towards India. This is another one by
CIP. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and it's, it's fascinating because, as
you mentioned, the, the market's really seeing an uptick in wind
and hybrid projects, and this is exactly where CIP wants to be able
to park themselves with this partnership. So putting the capital
behind a local developer and independent power producer that's, had
a track record of success is good for both parties but they're
capitalizing on it at a time when you know, India's likely to add
a, something like 80 gigawatts of renewables over the next, like,
five years or six years alone. Which is a massive amount. And
again, they've had, big pipe dreams and, and big pipelines in, in
India for a long time. But they seem to be getting serious about
it, especially when companies start, plowing more and more money
into the market and starting to unlock a lot more repowering
opportunities in India, where they've gotten their policies all
kind of squared away at the state level to, to start doing a lot
more project repowering and also their transmission infrastructure
which they also recognize they're going to have to heavily invest
in to be able to, to get all these renewable projects on their
grid. So, they're, they're really starting to push hard, in, in
India they've, they've, like I said, have pretty big pretty big
ambitions to be able to add a lot of gigawatts here in the coming
years. Joel Saxum: I'd like to see CIP's kind of strategy play out
wherever you see an emerging market. They're there. They're in
every offshore play. They're in a lot of, like in, in, I'm not
saying India is an emerging market. It's a very dynamic market
right now. A lot of players moving and grooving people in, people
out, but there's one thing they have a big renewable energy goals
and there's a lot of money coming in there. So CIP, you're seeing
them. They've been in, they've been in country in India since 2021.
Not only with Ampen, but with Vivid, Vivid or Vivid as well. So
they've been in that market for a little while. And as Allen and I
know, working in India, the Indian market, it's nice to have a
local compadre there to kind of guide what you're going to do to
safeguard your assets too. So, good look on them and I can see CIP
doing more and more of this. Allen Hall: In our second story,
Italian utility giant Enel will invest 38 billion euros in grids
and renewables through 2027. The company is allocating 75 percent
of investments to European business operations. And they're
committing about 26 billion euros to great investments, primarily
in Italy and Spain. Now, Phil, you don't think of Enel as being
that financially rich at the moment. It seems like a lot of energy
companies and renewables have narrow margins, but Enel does seem to
have The wherewithal to do some really big projects at the moment.
Philip Totaro: Well, between the credibility that they have, plus
their balance sheet, and their, their projecting, growth up to,
around 24 and a half billion euros by 2027 in terms of their, their
EBITDA and net income of about seven and a half. So what's kind of
fascinating about this is they, they do a lot of turnover already
from their conventional utilities business, and they've been
heavily invested in solar up to this point which has made them a, a
decent return. Keep in mind that Enel, also encompasses Endesa over
in Spain and they have, asset holdings, and I want to say 39 or 40
different countries around the world. And a, and a good sized
portfolio of renewables, but it's, it's good to see them that they,
they want to keep pushing, particularly with the, the grid
infrastructure, because as we've talked about, I don't know how
many times, that's really what's going to unlock a lot of
renewables investments. Joel Saxum: What I like to see here in the
press release that NL put out is seizing on brownfield
opportunities. What we know about a lot of the European fleet of
wind specifically is that it's aging, right? They're coming to end
of life soon. So there's going to be an opportunity for repowers,
an opportunity for lifetime extensions and a lot of these assets
probably coming up on the open market for sale, because there's a,
there's a complete market there of buy an aging asset, refurbish
it, get it up to run. And then. Run it for years or sell it again.
So you can see and I'll make some moves there as well. Allen Hall:
Over in the United States, the Long Beach Harbor Commission will
match 14 million dollars for an upcoming state grant. The project
includes a massive 400 acre wind turbine terminal at the port of
Long Beach and when it's complete, it'll be the largest offshore
wind facility of its kind in the United States. Phil, in the
outcome of the presidential elections you would think that
California would slow down on offshore wind, but they're going full
steam ahead. Well, Philip Totaro: and keep in mind that this Pure
Wind Project also was able to secure around 475 million through one
of our state ballot initiatives out here, Prop 4 which is gonna
raise a few taxes and, and things like that. What else is new in
California? But at least give them some money to be able to put
towards constructing this 4. 7 billion and that's still a pretty
steep price tag, but 4. 7 billion offshore wind terminal out here.
And certainly the, the, if they do it and they can pull this off
it'll, it'll be good for offshore wind in California, certainly,
and, and elsewhere on the West Coast but there's a long way to go
because if, they're only getting the money together to do about 10
percent of what they need, and they're, it's theoretically relying
on the federal government for the rest of it. They may be out in
the cold for the next four years waiting for some additional
funding. Good, good on them to, to see the progress they've made up
till up till this point and, and getting this extra money to do the
design studies and the, the, the front end design work that they're
gonna have to do for the port and terminal is, is good. Amongst the
Joel Saxum: three of us, we talked earlier today about the speed at
which the Chinese have grown in their offshore wind space. I think
Allen, the number you said was 39 gigawatts deployed as of now.
The, one of the reasons that they're able to do that is they have
existing port facilities. They have existing, an existing ship
building community. They have all of the things that you need. To
do stuff offshore quickly. Let alone, of course, their permit and
permitting and regulatory environment is a lot different than ours,
but you're seeing that the groundwork is being laid here way ahead
of time, right? So we're, we're talking, we're, we're not going to
see a turbine in the water until 2030, 2032 in California. And if
you're learning anything from what happened on the East coast, as
we're. Developing farms. We have a couple already going right now
and we're still fighting for port facilities on the east coast. You
can see, learn those lessons and see what the difference is between
us and other, nations that are doing the same chase. But they're
gonna have to get on this thing now because even though it is six
or eight years before we see steel in the water there, they're
gonna need to start working on facilities ASAP.