Macquarie Invests $1.7B in DESRI, Sany Plans European Factory

Macquarie Asset Management invest $1. 7 billion in D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments, which operates over 6 gigawatts. Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Sany is preparing to establish a production facility in Europe by 2026. GCM Grosvenor has acquired a 25% stake in the 845 megawatt Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon.

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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 Lightning Tech. 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.

Macquarie Asset Management has agreed to acquire a substantial minority stake in D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments, also known as DESRE. This investment, valued up to 1. 7 billion U. S. dollars, aims to bolster Desiree’s growth and enhance its market position. Desiree, a leading renewable energy company, currently operates a platform with over 6 gigawatts of gross capacity in projects either operational or under construction.

Phill, when you start tossing around the B for billion number in financial exchanges, there’s a massive movement of cash in renewables.

Philip Totaro: Well, and this follows on the theme that we’ve been talking about over the past, whatever, two, three months about asset management firms and financial investors kind of pouring money into renewable energy asset owners.

Obviously, Macquarie’s got a substantial background throughout their investments in Australia, in Europe throughout the rest of the world. Interestingly enough, the U. S. is a market where they’ve been kind of under penetrated. So, they took their time with evaluating who to partner up with and the fact they picked D.

E. Shaw is, is kind of fascinating. You Shaw’s got a, a fine track record with the, the performance of their assets, according to our data. And most of their projects are quite profitable. So it’s it’s a good way for Macquarie to get their, their foot in the door.

Joel Saxum: De Shaw on the renewable side, right?

De Shaw is a very large company, $60 billion in assets and committed capital with a smaller portion of that being the renewables arm. But it’s, it’s an odd thing because in the, in the operational circles that we talk to a lot in the wind energy industry in the United States, we don’t hear de Shah’s name too much.

But of course you look at this six gigawatts of power moving and grooving here. One thing that’s interesting to me, of course, is the stuff that we follow on the the Uptime podcast here is Macquarie Asset Management recently acquired Onyx Insight. So you could see some Onyx Insight kit being deployed on these DE Shaw renewables

Allen Hall: assets shortly.

Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Sany is preparing to establish a production facility in Europe by 2026. The company is in advanced talks with potential European customers and has narrowed down potential production locations to three, with Germany and Spain among the options. The company expects to finalize its first European order by the end of this year, initially shipping turbines from China while offering services through partners in Europe.

And it’s service center in Germany, China, moving into the European marketplace with a factory is going to upset the balance of powers in the wind industry, Phil.

Philip Totaro: Yeah, this is interesting because it’s another Chinese company trying to set up shop in Europe. But one that already has an R and D presence down in Spain for those that don’t know and actually Saini Heavy Industries actually has.

Manufacturing facilities and space available in Germany already, which is why they’re likely to locate their manufacturing in one of those two countries. This has been kind of the talk of the town lately, particularly the wind energy Hamburg event this week. The, the debate rages on about whether or not it’s a good thing to have the, the Chinese OEMs setting up shop in Europe but I liken this to, Vestas coming over to the U.

S. and getting, tax credits and, and rebates for being able to create jobs and create tax revenue now if you’re going to get into the debate about Well, it’s a little different because a chinese owned company is not just a chinese owned company It’s also potentially state owned and military owned partially military owned that’s a bit of a different conversation still to be addressed by the european commission, but As far as, having another manufacturer in the market, probably a good thing to be able to keep price pressure on the Western guys and, it does offer an opportunity for some of the people who have recently been laid off or otherwise let go from some of the mainstream Western OEMs.

Or major supply chain companies a chance to, to get back in the door with with a Chinese company who’s, who’s looking to staff up.

Joel Saxum: So, for those of you think that this is a, just a Chinese play coming into the, to Europe, into the Western market, something to remember here is Sany Renewable Energy’s Managing Director for Europe Paulo Fernandes Sores.

He is ex Siemens Kamesa. He ran the C, he was the CEO of Siemens Kamesa onshore business in Asia Pacific. So this isn’t a, there, there is some market presence and some continuity of people that know the market and that have been in that position before to make moves in Europe within this group and all of this being released at Hamburg this week in Germany, the biggest onshore and offshore wind show.

So, Saini looking to make some moves.

Allen Hall: Lastly, U S alternative asset manager, GCM Grosvenor. has acquired a 25 percent stake in the 845 megawatt Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon. The stake was purchased from a group led by Brookfield Asset Management. Shepherds Flat, titled as the largest repowered wind farm in North America, boasts 338 turbines producing over 2, 000 gigawatt hours of clean electricity annually.

So, there’s a lot of transactions being conducted currently for farms that are about to be repowered. To get the new PPA and then the tax credits. Why would you purchase a win from that has just been repowered?

Philip Totaro: It’s well, there’s two reasons why I think this transaction has taken place. Now, first of all GCM Grosvenor is an asset manager that financial asset manager that has only recently been kind of poking around the renewables markets.

They do have similar to other, asset financial asset firms. They do have kind of the deep pockets, but they don’t have the experience. And so they wanted to be able to partner up with somebody like Brookfield, for instance, in this case, that had the requisite experience. and it could offer them an opportunity to get into something at scale.

Why they wanted to get in, after the thing’s already been repowered is they’re still reaping the benefits it was repowered. So Brookfield took over this asset in 2021. It was originally built in 2012 and commissioned with as you mentioned a lot through 338 GE 2. 5s. And since they’ve repowered it they not only requalified the project for another 10 years of the production tax credit, the, the project is actually been repowered since 2022.

So it’s, they’re still able to take advantage of another eight years worth of asset ownership before, I mean, with these, with these guys, they could either flip their, their 25 percent to somebody else. They could increase it. They could decrease it. They’re just looking to get into something profitable.

Kind of figure out how it all works, and if it’s something that they like and want to stay invested in, they’re gonna do that. If something else comes along that’s more attractive, they’re a little fickle sometimes with with their investments and their cash. But they definitely want to get involved in something that they think is gonna be, Profitable for them.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, it’s another one of the large capital houses, just deploying some capital, trying to get into renewables like you’re seeing the black rocks and although it’s in the infrastructure world doing, but smart move, right? Brookfield renewables established player, massive portfolio to learn from lots of good engineers over there.

They know how to run assets and make money with them. So if you’re going to, Take a minority stake in a wind farm, great one to hop on board with, especially a big one like this. Even though in Oregon it is that is a tough operating environment for wind turbines with intermittent icing issues and some other things.

They don’t experience lightning like we do in the Midwestern or the middle part of the country, but icing issues and other things are a bit of a task up there. But kudos to them for hopping in the market.