Nordex U.S. Turbine, Sierra Leone INvestment, €2M to Modvion

Nordex has announced the N169 5. X turbine, specifically designed
for the American market. Infinity Power, a joint venture between
Egypt's Infinity and Abu Dhabi's Masdar, has outlined a plan to
develop one gigawatt of renewable energy projects in Sierra Leone
by 2033. Modvion has received a €2 million investment from CMPC
Ventures, the innovation arm of the Chilean forestry company CMPC.
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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 IntelStor, 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 need market intelligence that
generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at
IntelStor. com. First up, German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex
has announced a new addition to its product line, specifically
designed for the U. S. market. The N169 5. X turbine boasts a rotor
diameter of 169 meters and can generate up to 5. 5 megawatts of
power. This new model is optimized for regions with low to medium
wind speeds and limited grid capacity. Okay, Phil. Nordex must be
seeing a market develop in the United States and they developed a
turbine for that. What's their ability to build that turbine in the
United States? Philip Totaro: First of all, let's look at why
they're doing this in the first place. So, About six or seven years
ago, I had spoken to some of their product folks and said, Hey,
look at this Acciona three megawatt, 140 meter rotor product that
they had. And this was just after the merger, before they started
designing this Delta platform that they got. That product, fit a
gaping hole in the US market where they needed something low wind
speed at a higher average power rating than, the 1. x and, the
stuff that we had in the market. And it's actually what led GE to
also go in that direction and develop something that was a 3
megawatt 140. It evolved into a 3. 6 154. Vestas launched last
year, and they've been installing recently the V163 4. 5. So, this
new Nordax turbine is based off of their Delta 4000 platform,
which, for those that don't know, that's their N149, their N163,
155. That's between, 4. 5 and, and five megawatts. What they're
doing with this is besides having a longer rotor, which gives them
access to lower wind speed sites, they're leveraging the. Supply
chain infrastructure that's already in place. So they've got,
generators, they got electrical equipment converters, controllers,
et cetera, that fit that kind of, 4 to 5 megawatt product range
where they'd be able to leverage that supply chain for this
product. They are, probably going to be building these in addition
to what they already publicly announced with restarting their
factory in Iowa. They're probably going to be building these in
Iowa as well and it looks like they will be able to take advantage
of some of the domestic content. Bonuses for the production tax
credit and potentially even some of the Manufacturing tax credits
as well. So I think all in all a great fit for a market need. Joel
Saxum: And this comes at the same time as Nordex is making moves in
the United States outside of offering this new product They also
input a new CEO of Nordex is North American operations Manav Sharma
on June 1st of this year. So, Nordex making some moves, looking to
be a bigger player in the North American market, definitely. Allen
Hall: Moving over to Africa, Sierra Leone is poised for a
significant boost in its renewable energy sector. Infinity Power, a
joint venture between Egypt's Infinity and Abu Dhabi's Masdar, has
signed a memorandum of understanding with the Sierra Leone
government. This agreement outlines a plan to develop one gigawatt
of renewable energy projects in the country by 2033. Now, Phil,
Sierra Leone is not a very large country. It's about half the size
of New York State. One gigawatt of renewable projects is a
significant amount of energy. Philip Totaro: It is. And the key
takeaway of this for me is that Mazdar is also plowing money into
yet another different market. We've talked in the past few weeks on
newsflash about how mass stars making moves throughout Europe
Germany, Spain they've been talking to and Disa and now looking
within, kind of continental Africa at different opportunities.
They've also been making moves out and, the Asia Pacific region
with investments in places like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. But this
is really, Mastar kind of extending their tentacles, if you will, I
know they're not octopus energy, but they're still extending their
tentacles in into a bunch of different markets. Joel Saxum: Yeah,
the cool thing to see here is Sierra Leone getting investment as an
emerging market in a place that has, it's electricity can be a
scarce resource sometimes. And the nice thing here is, is you, if
you look at the same way that a lot of African countries adopted
cellular technology. Where like say in the United States, we went
through three, four different versions of LTE, 3G, 4G, 5G, all this
stuff. And over there, they were able to go boom, 5G right away.
Cause they didn't have to go through all the hurdles of getting
through all this other infrastructure. Same kind of thing here
instead of, Hey, do we have a, what, what are the power plants look
like? And can we substitute renewables on the grid when you're
building, looking at one gigawatt of renewables? Well, you can
design your grid specifically for those one gigawatt of renewables
in a pipeline. So you have the better possibility of actually
developing those cheaper for the transmission side of things. So,
really good to see here that a Masdar is playing in those emerging
markets. Allen Hall: Swedish company Modvion known for developing
wind turbine towers has received. A significant investment from
CMPC Ventures, the innovation arm of the Chilean forestry company
CMPC. The 2 million euro investment will support Modvion's global
growth, including the construction of an industrial plant in
Europe. Modvion's unique approach uses laminated wood for wind
turbine towers, offering benefits such as a 90 percent reduction in
emissions compared to steel towers and improved carbon capture
capabilities. Okay, Phil, so why is a Swedish company connecting
with a Chilean forestry company? It seems like they're quite a ways
away from one another. Philip Totaro: They are, but this is
actually a, an interesting and kind of clever move for them
regarding their locking up their supply chain. So if you're
familiar with Modvion, they've already been engaged with some
forestry companies in Scandinavia. As well as other companies,
project developers like RWE are taking a look at their technology,
Vestas is involved in some of their prototype development as well.
But there is kind of a, a finite amount of the type of wood that
they need for making these laminated veneer towers. And so they
want to be able to look to markets like Chile or even markets like
I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at markets like Ecuador in
the future where we actually still get a significant amount of our,
our balsa wood core for wind turbine blades out of, out of Ecuador
these days. So. Diversifying your supply chain in South America is
a clever move, and being able to leverage it with investment from
the Forrester Company's venture arm is a bit of kudos to them. Joel
Saxum: I would like to see, for my de risking, I would say, I'd
like to see a little bit more of a track record with these things
before sticking a bunch of money in. Into it. But that's just in my
mind. Interesting tie up Chile to Sweden, although Sweden does have
a lot of forests just the wrong kind of trees apparently.