Acciona Energia Restructures in Brazil, C.I.P. Acquires Liberty Renewables, and Nordex Reduces Production in Brazil

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced the acquisition of a
1.3 gigawatt onshore wind portfolio in New York called Liberty
Renewables. Spanish renewable energy firm Acciona Energia decided
to restructure its business in Brazil after reviewing their
portfolio, citing challenges with project profitability. Wind
turbine manufacturer Nordex is reducing its production in Brazil in
response to low demand for contracts in the Brazilian marketplace.
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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 InstelStor, Phil Totaro,
and the chief commecrcial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. And
this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our
friends at InstelStor. If you want market intelligence that
generates revenue, then book a demonstration of InstelStor at
InstelStor. com. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has announced
the acquisition of a 1. 3 gigawatt portfolio of onshore wind
projects in New York called Liberty Renewables. CFP has made this
acquisition through its CIV fund, where it is targeting a final
close of 12 billion euros. Liberty has recently submitted its
application to New York's Office of Renewable Energy, citing for
its first project, Hoffman Falls Wynn, where construction is due to
start there in 2026. The building work on other projects in the 1.
3 gigawatt portfolio are due to start somewhere between 2027 and
2020. 30. Phil, why is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners going for
onshore wind in the United States? Philip Totaro: It's a great
question. And in particular, this Liberty Renewables portfolio it's
interesting because the New York Independent System Operator,
certainly within the state of New York, they need, additional
power. Anybody that's got a pipeline of projects in New York is
probably in good stead. But their power prices in NISO have
actually been fairly robust. And so I think, when Usually projects
in New York don't have a fixed price power offtake contract, except
for the offshore, obviously. And even then there's an escalator in
there. But yeah, most of the projects in the NYSO market are, on a
pretty healthy merchant power offtake. So it's actually a great
deal. And they're looking at potentially with this their fifth fund
here, they're looking at a total potential of, I think they said
something around 22 billion euros. So on top of what they've
already got committed, this is, something that can help them extend
more investments into some markets where there are small
portfolios, a development assets like this, that they can start
grabbing. Joel Saxum: Yeah. And just so everybody knows, this is
not a bunch of in the ground projects operating these. This is a
development pipeline. So these are, permitted and or not permitted,
but, active projects that are in the development phase where C. I.
P. will come in, finish the development and of course, a secure
financing to make these things happen. So right now, Nothing in the
ground, but soon to come. Allen Hall: Spanish renewable energy
firm, Acciona Energia has decided to restructure its business in
Brazil. After they have reviewed their portfolio, the company has
decided that the Latin Americans largest economy was adapting to
current conditions in the domestic market, and this has
implications worldwide, Phil. Brazil is going to be a renewable
energy powerhouse. Why is Acciona pulling out of Brazil now? Philip
Totaro: Yeah, this is a really great question because even for wind
they've got Brazil has something like 6. 1 gigawatts that's gonna
be built this year. I forget it precisely off the top of my head
how much solar But they've had an explosion lately and just on the
wind side in Brazil They've got another 81 gigawatts of projects
that have been proposed To the national regulator down there. All
of those would either have to go get a a C& I power offtake or
go through the auctions to be able to get some type of utility or
other offtake agreement in place. So not all of that 81 gigawatts
is going to be built, but that's what's in the pipeline at this
point. And that stretches them out through the next, five, six
years. So that's a massive amount of potential capacity. What's
interesting though, and I think one of the reasons for Acciona
pulling back from Brazil is because of the currency exchange rate
down there a lot of the companies that got some of the tariffs that
they received from previous auctions are seeing their PPAs
basically down at about, megawatt hour now based on the current
currency exchange. And so that's leading them to struggle when it
comes to profitability, despite the fact that they have
exceptionally high capacity factors down there that tends to make
up a little bit for a low PPA price. But Acciona is just in that
kind of weird space where a lot of their projects, you know, part
of it's because they took the the Acciona three megawatt kind of
legacy platform down there, the one 16, the one 25 meter rotor that
Product family has not been performing as well. So that's been
denting Acciona Energia's financial performance a little bit. And
also Acciona didn't have as much in the development pipeline down
there. A lot of other companies, including Statcraft and others
came in from Europe and started gobbling up a lot of the lucrative
project sites leaving Acciona to wonder where the opportunity is
for them in that market. So, from from the standpoint of a lot of
independent power producers this kind of reflection on, can we make
money in this market? Joel Saxum: Yeah, just for everybody
listening as well, for clarification, this is Acciona Energia. So
this is the development and operating arm of wind farms, or of
assets, not the Nordex Acciona OEM side of things. That's regularly
confused. So I want to make sure that nobody's on that page. Allen
Hall: Turbine manufacturer of wind turbines, Nordex is reducing its
production in Brazil in response to low demand for contracts in the
Brazilian marketplace. Phil, what, okay. So Acciona Energia is
backing out of Brazil. Now, Norex, like an OEM, a really good OEM,
is deciding to back out of Brazil. Why is Nordex slowing down in
Brazil? Philip Totaro: This also gets into some of the economic and
financial scenarios around. They You know, they got clobbered a bit
because of the performance of those, legacy Acciona three megawatt
turbines that we just talked about, but they've got some sales of
the N one 63 platform. They just don't have enough sales to warrant
a, a full fledged thrust into the market. You've got Vestas very
strong. In Brazil with tons of orders more order book than I think,
even the subcomponent suppliers can handle at this point for the V
one 50. And they're just not, the Nordex with the N163 and also
Siemens Gamesa with their six megawatt 170 platform, they have both
pulled back from the Brazilian market because they're just not
seeing enough order book to justify being down there. So it's a bit
disappointing and it's basically leaving the Brazilian market for
only really a handful of players. So you've got Vestas. That's
obviously the strongest in the market. GE's kind of pulled back. So
that's leaving Goldwind who is taking over supposedly GE's
manufacturing facilities there. And to the extent that Nordex can
get some additional orders, then they'll definitely maintain their
presence in that market. Yeah, you see this happening in a number
of major markets around the world where there's a bit of
consolidation happening in terms of the number of OEMs that are
offering products there. The Brazilian market is quickly turning
into a majority Vestas market.