Acciona Sells Half of Renewable Portfolio, Invenergy Acquires in Brazil

Acciona has identified around 6 GW of its global capacity for
potential sale. Invenergy has partnered with Patria Investments to
acquire a portfolio of wind power complexes in Brazil. Arclight
Capital Partners has launched SkyVest Renewables, a new renewables
initiative which has already acquired a 160 MW wind farm in Texas.
Repsol is in talks to acquire the remaining 60% stake in Hecate
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on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored
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https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech.
And I'm here with the founder and CEO of Intel Store, Phil Totaro,
and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. And
this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our
friends at IntelStor. If you want market intelligence that
generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at
IntelStor.com. Arclight Capital Partners has launched SkyVest
Renewables, a new initiative focused on operating and optimizing
renewable energy assets. With an initial 500 million capital
commitment, SkyVest has already acquired a 160 megawatt farm
facility. And Texas, the company aims to target operating utility
grade wind and solar assets in North America, implementing best
practices to generate near term cashflow and mitigate risks. Phil,
there should be a lot more companies entering this marketplace. It
can be a big revenue generator. Philip Totaro: Well, and this
follows on the trend that we've been talking about for months,
which is, I mean, for those that don't know, ArcLight already has
ArcLight Capital Partners, the, the kind of umbrella and parent of,
of this infrastructure company. They already have some ownership of
assets wind and solar throughout the U. S. It's a smaller
portfolio, but they were kind of dipping their toe in the water,
and now You know, standing up a new project development and asset
management company with SkyVest is is fantastic to see. And I
think, with the capital commitment they've got with 500 million,
that's a good place to start. But in reality, there's probably a
lot more coming and you should expect that that Arclight's going to
be doing a lot to help them raise funds. and deploy that capital
following on that, that trend of infrastructure companies doing,
doing that throughout the globe. Joel Saxum: I know I talk about
oil and gas and lessons learned and like things that can be taken
from that sector, but in the oil and gas world, you'll see that
people buy and sell oil fields left and right. There'll be group,
large asset grabs or, or even a single well or something like this,
but a lot of times it's a field. And we're starting to see that
more and more in the wind industry, because what people will do in
the oil industry is buy that field, optimize it, they'll do a
little CO2 injection, or they'll do work over, bring in work over
rigs, clean up the wells, get them working better, and then they'll
dump it, sell it to someone else that wants to operate it. So we're
seeing some more capital come into the space now where they're
buying up wind farms, our ArcLight Capital, bought that 160
megawatt wind farm in Texas. And they'll optimize it, right?
They'll put a little bit of money in it. They'll put some, do some
best practices stuff and they'll get that thing running better.
Whether it's through just best practices or whether it's through
new sensor technologies or new LEP upgrades or lightning protection
upgrades or whatever they may be, get that thing up and moving and
then possibly sell it in the future for a profit. And that is
starting to happen more and more and more in the wind industry at a
global scale. Allen Hall: Spanish oil company Repsol is in talks to
acquire the remaining 60 percent stake in U. S. renewable energy
company, Hecate energy Repsol already owns 40 percent of Hecate
energy group, which develops renewable projects in the U S and this
move follows Repsol's recent acquisition of ConnectGen for almost
800 million, further expanding its presence in the U S renewable
energy market. Phil, why is a large Spanish oil production company
moving to renewable projects in the U. S. right now? Philip Totaro:
They actually are seeing potentially better returns for those that
don't know this company, Hecate Energy, They have already deployed
some battery storage projects in the U. S. They have a significant
development pipeline, and most recently, they just proposed to
develop a, an offshore wind farm. in some of the project sites that
were pulled from a BOEM auction in the Gulf of Mexico, specifically
for hydrogen generation. So they're, they've got quite an
interesting pipeline and it's a play that Repsol obviously wants to
be not just a Spanish oil company, They want to be a global energy
company. And this is a way in which they can kind of get their foot
in a market where they see a lot more opportunity that potentially
what they see in investing in renewables in Spain. Joel Saxum:
Yeah. To partner on with what Phil's saying there, Repsol, of
course, large oil major running operations all around the world,
offshore, onshore, all the above. But in the, when you're talking
in the renewable sector, specifically in wind in Spain, there's a
lot of aged assets. And where they're hooked into the grid there
and the availability of good wind sites, a lot of them are, you're
15, 20, 25 years old. You're starting to get to lifetime extension
projects. Whereas when you come to the United States. Of course,
the geography is larger. There's a lot more space for more wind
projects. And it is an, it's a newer market, right? So the assets
are younger if you're trying to buy into other assets and those
kinds of things. So, you can see some oil majors starting to pull
out of wind or make different moves around it like BP or Shell. But
Repsol diving further in. Allen Hall: U. S. based Invenergy has
partnered with Brazilian investment fund Petria Investments to
acquire a portfolio of wind power complexes in Brazil. The 600
megawatt portfolio purchased from Contour Global and Electrobras
consists of four projects, all of them located in the northern
states of Brazil. Invenergy will own 10 percent of the portfolio
and provide operation and maintenance services, marking its first
ownership of installed wind capacity in the country. Now, Phil,
Invenergy's been involved in a number of projects in the United
States for a long time, and they do O& M on those projects in
the U. S. Now they're moving into Brazil, what is the incentive to,
to move to Brazil to acquire some part of that growing marketplace?
Philip Totaro: Well, this is a really interesting play because
this, the, the company they're partnering with Petria Investments
or Petria Investimentos, technically. They are kind of a Brazilian
version of an infrastructure fund, if you will, where they are
starting to gobble up some of the legacy operational wind and, and
even a little bit of, of solar assets in the country. But
specifically bringing in somebody with experience to operate and
maintain which I think is interesting that they wouldn't have
worked or partnered with any of the companies down in Brazil. But
Invenergy does have an investment strategy that they wanted to kind
of. Start getting their, their tentacles out and, and, into
different markets. And Vennergy's talked about diving into projects
in Spain, they're developing projects in Japan and elsewhere in the
world. And so this gives them an opportunity to get a foothold in
the Brazilian market. So it's, it's a very, very interesting, Joel
Saxum: One of the things Invenergy does in the States, as Allen was
talking about earlier, is they will go and build a prod, they'll,
they'll go through the whole fermenting pipeline, get everything
ready, build a project, and they'll build it with the, basically a
selling agreement already in place, right? They'll build it and
then they'll sell it to an operator. Immediately once it starts
commissioning is complete, then they'll stay on and they'll sign an
agreement to be the, basically the FSA holder and run the wind farm
for them. So I think you could see that possibly that strategy
rolling over into Brazil. So once they've established a foothold in
Brazil with all these projects, understanding how to operate there,
understanding how to do the O& M on these, because of
logistically and spare parts and all these different things you
have to figure out, I could foresee Invenergy starting to actually
do the same thing down there is develop, sell, and continue to run.
But that's going to be, of course, in the future. Allen Hall:
Spanish renewables company Acciona Energia is considering a major
asset rotation strategy amid challenging financial results. The
company has identified around six gigawatts of its global capacity
for potential sale, representing nearly half of its total installed
and consolidated capacity. Actiona Energia's first half profits for
2024 have crashed by 84 percent year on year to 65 million euros,
primarily due to extraordinary conditions in the Spanish market.
Phil, Actiona Energia selling half their assets has got to be a
little bit of a warning sign, right? Philip Totaro: Yes, especially
when you consider what Joel just mentioned in regards to, in the
Spanish market, you've got kind of, a concentration of very
experienced companies,