Xcel Adds 4.2 GW to Midwest, €8 Billion EU Wind Push

In this week's News Flash, Allen and Phil discuss Xcel Energy
adding 4.2 GW of clean energy to the US Midwest, The European
Investment Bank's partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo to unlock up to
€8 Billion for clean energy, and Empire Energy and The Herrick
Corporation's partnership to form an offshore wind venture. Sign up
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 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.
Excel Energy plans to add 4. 2 gigawatts of clean energy in the
upper Midwest by 2030. The plan includes 3200 megawatts of wind,
600 megawatts of battery storage, and 400 megawatts of solar. This
could reduce regional emissions by up to 88 percent compared to
2005 levels. The company will extend operations at two nuclear
plants and has cut one planned gas plant. The remaining gas plant
will be hydrogen capable. Now, Xcel Energy notes that the wind
power remains key, but solar deployment is lower than previously
considered due to economic factors. Factors. Phil, this is an
interesting approach by Xcel Energy that they're really focused on
wind. I was at a recent conference where a lot of wind operators
said that their focus over the next couple of years will be on
solar for a lot of their operations. Philip Totaro: Well, and, and
Xcel has been traditionally very solar focused but the fact that
they would pivot to wind at this point themselves is reflective of
the market dynamics for wind and price stabilization and in the
merchant markets, as well as for utility power offtake agreements
and the fact that they've Excel has committed to building more
transmission in Minnesota North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, and,
and even out into Michigan, that's going to facilitate some of this
capacity build out. So, the fact that they're kind of putting these
plans in place and getting approval from the, the various state
regulatory bodies to, to be able to build both the transmission and
then, this wind solar and battery storage cap Capacity. That's very
impressive that, they're, they're going to be able to push forward
with it. It doesn't obviously uncork any more than what they've
committed to thus far again, because of the, the transmission
constraints, but at least they're, they're committing to, starting
to fund that process of, building out more transmission and modern
transmission that will allow for more renewables to to achieve
penetration on their their portion of the grid. Allen Hall: Empire
Energy Partners and the Herrick Corporation have formed a joint
venture to enhance the US offshore wind supply chain capacity. They
will explore manufacturing components for fixed and floating
offshore wind projects, including monopiles, transition pieces,
secondary steel and towers. The venture combines Herrick's steel
production experience with Empire Energy's EPC capabilities. This
is fascinating, Phil, because we really haven't seen this sort of
partnership in the United States yet. Over in Europe, this happens
quite a bit. Will we see more of this sort of de risking, but at
least trying to move forward on offshore wind? Philip Totaro: I
certainly hope so. And this is actually in direct response to them,
being in line for contracts for some of the upcoming wind projects
that we talked about last week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.
So, particularly in the northeast of the United States. So the fact
that they You know, are, are moving forward with this partnership
and the fact that it's going to cover more of the domestic
production of things like, like you mentioned, the transition
pieces, secondary steel some foundation and tower elements, that's,
that's great because a lot of that stuff was otherwise going to
come from Europe or, or Asia. For a lot of these U. S. based
projects. So, the more we can domesticate and the more they can try
to take advantage of the manufacturing tax credits that we have as
part of the IRA bill that's, that's a good thing for domestic jobs
and creating a domestic economy. Tax base and supply chain over
here. Allen Hall: The European Investment Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo
have launched an initiative that could unlock up to 8 billion euros
in investment for the European wind industry. The EIB will provide
a 500 million euro counter guarantee to Intesa San Paolo, enabling
the creation of a 1 billion euro bank guarantee portfolio. This
will support the supply chain and power grid interconnection. for
new wind farm projects across the EU. This initiative is part of
the EIB's 5 billion euro wind power package announcement at COP28
and is the first agreement under this package supported by
InvestEU. Well, Phil, this is a way to kick off this InvestEU
program with a really substantial Amount of euros being pushed into
renewable energy. Philip Totaro: And it's coming at the, at a time
when a lot of folks in the EU are sensing, this increased pressure
from the Chinese trying to enter the market and saying, we need to
do something to bolster. European companies with, with investment.
So this is, as I've kind of complained about at various times on,
on the podcast before this is something that is, has long been kind
of overdue and, and necessary get your wallet out and, and start
kind of putting money behind domestic production including, from,
from this Italian bank where that has the potential to support.
Companies like Festus and, and frankly, even it could end up
supporting companies like Ming Yang coming over but that's also a
situation where they'd be coming into the EU, creating jobs in the
EU, playing by the EU's rules by creating a factory here or there.
A investment like this, frankly, goes a long way when a European
company gets an order book, but they don't have the cash on hand to
be able to support, all the supply chain sourcing they need to do.
So this gives them guarantees to be able to get access to, the, the
tooling, the parts, the, the components that they need to be able
to do the manufacturing that's going to allow them to keep
capturing more order book and delivering on the order book they
already have.