Corio Generation’s Impact on Global Offshore Wind

Allen and Joel sit down with Jonathan Cole, CEO of Corio Generation
and Chairman of the Global Wind Energy Council, for an illuminating
discussion on the future of offshore wind energy. Cole shares
invaluable insights on navigating regulatory challenges across
multiple markets, building sustainable supply chains, and securing
project financing. He also emphasizes the critical role of
community engagement through what he calls "social license" in
developing successful offshore wind projects. Sign up now for
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Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy's
brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow. Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen Hall, joined by my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we're honored
to have with us Jonathan Cole, a visionary leader in the global
offshore wind industry. and a key figure driving the transition to
sustainable energy. Jonathan is the CEO of Corio Generation, a
global offshore wind powerhouse, launched in April of 2022. As a
portfolio manager of Macquarie Asset Management operating
independently, Corio has quickly established itself as a major
player in the renewable energy sector. Under Jonathan's leadership,
Corio has amassed one of the world's largest offshore wind
development portfolios, boasting over 30 gigawatts of projects in
various stages of development across Europe, Asia Pacific, and the
Americas. Jonathan's influence extends far beyond his role at
Corio. He currently serves as the chairman of the Global Wind
Energy Council, GWEC. and his industry expertise has been
recognized through numerous leadership positions. These include
chairing the Global Offshore Wind Health and Safety Organization,
the UK's Offshore Wind Program Board, and the Offshore Renewable
Energy Catapults Industry Advisory Group. He has also been a board
member of Renewable UK and a member of the UK's Offshore Wind
Industry Council. Before joining Corio, Jonathan played a pivotal
role in shaping the offshore wind landscape at eBird DLA from 2010
to 2021, he spearheaded the creation and growth of Ebert Della's
offshore wind business, transforming it into a market leader with
approximately 14 billion Euros invested a project pipeline
exceeding 30 gigawatts, and a team of 800 professionals spanning
four continents and 11 countries. Jonathan's a very busy person and
we appreciate his time. Jonathan, welcome to the program. Great to
be here with you. You've been a busy person. I've been watching
your LinkedIn account in all the countries and continents you've
been on over the last couple of months. You're busy in offshore
wind and you were just in New York for the climate week. What was
some of the outcome from those sessions that you attended? Jonathan
Cole: Yeah, it's a busy time for offshore wind and busy time for
me, particularly. And I was in New York last week really with two
hats on. One was with my Corio CEO hat on because we've got a big
project out there in New York Attentive Energy. So I was spending
some time with the team out there and hearing all the great work
they're doing. But also I'm the chair of the Global Wind Energy
Council, so I was out there with that hat on, helping on the
advocacy piece more generally. So it was a really interesting week.
I think New York Climate Week is a really important date in the
calendar, the climate calendar, because it serves as a bit of a
precursor for the COP events later in the year and quite often is
quite important in setting the agenda for that. So we were out
there with the G Wake and the Global Renewables Alliance talking
about some of the big topics. That need to be tackled if we're
going to convert into reality the tripling up of renewables that
was a part of the last COP 28 treaty, talking about some of the
things that need to be done to make that happen. So that was a
really interesting and positive week, I have to say. Joel Saxum:
Jonathan, if I was to ask what are the top two, maybe, just to keep
it simple, the top two things that as the GWF chairman, of course,
and at Climate Week, what are the top two challenges that are
facing offshore wind at a global scale right now? Jonathan Cole: If
you don't mind, Joel, I'm going to give you a top three, right?
Yeah, perfect. There's three big things that are necessary to
happen in order to get the tripling up of renewables on track. So
one is on the regulatory side, and that is about putting in place
some regulatory enablers. Principally around speeding up the
permitting process. So all these great projects that, that,
developers like Corio and others want to build can get through that
process as quickly as possible, but also on the regulatory side,
speeding up the build out of the transmission system, the grid
system, so that when the projects are ready. The system is ready to
take the power. So that's the first part of it. The second part of
it is around supply chain and trade. And I think we all recognize
that there is a huge challenge in tripling up because there's a
huge amount of capacity needing to be built in the supply chain,
but also that's a huge opportunity. One of the most exciting
opportunities, actually, that we face is the ability to breathe
life and economic activity back into these coastal communities and
post industrial towns where offshore wind farms are located, but
that doesn't happen by accident. It needs coordinated action. It
needs industrial planning, and it needs a sensible approach to
things like trade policy. And the third thing is finance. This Now,
finance in the more mature markets and the OECD markets is probably
less of an issue, although the cost of capital going up has really
had an impact and we need to do what we can to de risk and try to
take that cost of capital back down. But when you think of finance
in the non OECD countries and the emerging, markets, developing
economies, Finance is one of the single biggest barriers to the
energy transition, because access to capital at reasonable terms
and reasonable rates is hugely significant. Those developing
markets could be paying 4, 5, 6 percent more for capital than in
the developed markets, and that makes the energy transition so much
more expensive for them. So the three big things, getting the
regulations right, and I think there's a political will to do that.
We know who to do that. Getting the supply chain built up. There's
definitely a political will to create the jobs, but we just need to
get the right mechanisms in place to do it. And the finance,
getting the finance in place, and in particular thinking about de
risking for the mature markets. and getting concessional finance
and, other finance in place for the emerging markets. Allen Hall:
Can I touch upon the regulatory aspect for a minute? Because I
think you have such a difficult problem ahead of you. You have
projects in the US, UK, South Korea, Ireland, Australia, Taiwan,
Brazil. Each one of those has a regulatory framework that is
different from the others. In the United States, I think the issue
has been more recently, not the federal government, they seem very
attuned to developing offshore projects. It seems to be getting it
into the states and then into the localities and transmission being
one of those issues. How are you starting to navigate some of those
state and local issues, particularly in the U. S.? where they seem
to arise haphazardly at times. Jonathan Cole: Yeah I think that
development of these types of infrastructure projects is very much
a local game. You have to really understand the local regulatory
framework and the stakeholder landscape to go about it in the right
way. And you have to recognize that these are quite long
development cycles. They're complicated projects. It takes a long
time to assess the potential and engage the potentially affected or
interested parties so that you can find solutions. So you need to
be in it for the long term, and you need to understand the
landscape that you're playing into. And then at that point, it's
really just about being very present and very engaging and very
transparent and very open. So the US market is a complex market
because You've got permitting at multiple layers. So you've got the
federal permits, the BOEM are managing as a one stop shop, which is
great for the federal point of view, but then you've got state and
even, local and municipal permits that you need to get placed. So
there's a lot of intervention there and a lot of need to be
constantly sharing and talking and engaging in a positive way,
listening to people. adjusting your plans, where you can to try and
accommodate those people. Educating a lot of cases about, the
positive impacts and trying to dispel maybe some of the myths that
you hear. And just generally trying to show people that what we're
doing is a force for good. We're here to do something good. From a
planetary perspective in terms of climate change, but even a local
perspective in terms of energy security and local tax areas and job
creation and all that stuff. So I think it's about knowing the
landscape and being there every day, working hard, being very
transparent and open with people.