Couple of Big Wind Developers Are Running Out of Gas

For all the money the Biden administration has been frantically shoveling into the wind sector - I'm praying this is a last-minute, panicked gambit on their part because November looks dicey - it's all coming to late to help out some of the biggest names in wind turbine development.

Siemens Gamesa, the Spanish renewable spin-off of German parent Siemens Energy (and one of my favorite villains in the wind farm wars, although no one tops Ørsted) says it's going to lay off up to 4100 people in their turbine divisions across three countries in part of a "restructuring" move.

I told you last December, thanks to warranty issues, inflation and subsidy reductions, they were already in a financial pickle, and then a much-needed bailout from the German government was unexpectedly torpedoed by the German supreme court. They had to drop a big project in the US that cost them some serious cancelation cash, and things haven't gotten any better.

...The Germans, who were supposed to be bailing out turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa, are now in a subsidy pickle thanks to their fiscal situation. Siemens was already in trouble, and wound up pulling the plug on a big US project a little over a week ago.
Siemens Gamesa has discontinued its plans to build and operate an offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Virginia, US.
The company’s USD 200 million (about EUR 187 million) manufacturing plant was planned to be built at the Port of Virginia’s Portsmouth Marine Terminal. It was intended to support major US offshore wind projects, including Dominion Energy’s 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project.

The German government, trapped in climate cult fantasy land, has also suddenly run up against a wall of its own making. The subsidies it pays renewable energy providers for doing the voodoo they do so badly turned out to be twice as much as forecast this year.

GULP

Germany will need to find more cash to fund its energy transition ambitions this year after the subsidies it must pay renewables producers doubled on the back of tumbling wholesale power prices.
The state will pay as much as €20 billion ($21.7 billion) to wind and solar operators through the end of 2024, twice what grid operators had forecast in October, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday.
European wholesale power prices have fallen sharply over the last year and are hovering at levels seen before the energy crisis set in motion by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That means the government must shell out the difference to ensure renewables producers get paid their guaranteed minimum strike price.

Ya gotta love it - what a shell game.

Speaking of shells - Shell Oil, which had been investing heavily in offshore wind to salve and stifle the ESG itches of activist investors announced yesterday it was going to have major cutbacks in their offshore wind projects and staff. The oil and gas company was going back to oil and gas because?

It is now prioritizing returns for its investors.

British energy giant Shell is poised to reduce its workforce in its offshore wind division as CEO Wael Sawan shifts the company's focus towards oil and gas, Bloomberg has reported.
The job cuts, mainly in Europe, are expected to commence within months.
A Shell spokesperson stated: “We are concentrating on select markets and segments to deliver the most value for our investors and customers.
“Shell is looking at how it can continue to compete for offshore wind projects in priority markets while maintaining our focus on performance, discipline and simplification.”
The company, which had invested significantly in offshore wind to capitalise on its marine oil and gas extraction expertise, is now prioritising shareholder returns.
...The impending layoffs in the offshore wind department are part of these cost-reduction measures, following earlier job cuts in the low-carbon solutions unit.

They've already slashed the offshore budgets and two of the top division executives have left.

Sounds like a pretty thorough house cleaning which left little forward momentum room for the wind divisions at either company.

Energy Giants Shell PLc and Siemens Gamesa Slash Wind Sector: Is Wind Power Failing?
Recently, two large energy companies, Shell Plc and Siemens Gamesa, are making huge cuts to their #OSW sector business. Could it be that they realize their return on investment from #OSW is just… pic.twitter.com/kFdxaNu7yq— SaveLBI (@saveLBIorg) May 30, 2024

...Could it be that they realize their return on investment from #OSW is just not paying off? Perhaps Warren Buffett’s words of wisdom on wind turbines got it right: "On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms... that's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit." ...

Don't think for two seconds that Biden and his little Green henchmen don't realize the tax credits and subsidy losses are killing the grift. These renewables simply, as the Warren Buffet quote above makes clear and anyone in CA knows, cannot exist in a free market state. They cannot stand on their own. They have to have the government propping them up, basically forever.

So that's what Biden's proposing and for a wide swath of his climate cult friends. Every little pig to the trough!

The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed expanding tax credits that have for years boosted U.S. solar and wind energy projects to cover a wider range of clean energy technologies including nuclear fission and fusion.
The Treasury Department announced its guidance for Clean Electricity Production Credits and Clean Electricity Investment Credits, created under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, that will be available in 2025 as the previously available wind and solar production and investment tax credits sunset.

"The Inflation Reduction Act’s new technology-neutral Clean Electricity credits, which will come into effect in 2025, are one of the law’s most significant contributions to tackling the climate crisis,” John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy, said in a statement.
He said they will help the U.S. meet its goal to achieve a net-zero emission power sector by 2035.

And the Treasury gnome is, like, HELL, YEAH we can print that money!

...The proposal identifies a half-dozen technologies that may be eligible to qualify for the lucrative tax credits, including marine and hydrokinetic energy, nuclear fission and fusion, hydropower, geothermal and some forms of waste energy recovery. The credits were as high as 30% for wind and solar projects if all conditions were met.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters that the IRA has already driven over $850 billion in clean energy and manufacturing investment from the private sector and led to record additions of renewable energy capacity.

The new program is "the next key step," she said.

As you might imagine, the cultists were giddy.

The fight continues unabated.

Ørsted and the state of New Jersey announced a settlement today for the two projects the company pulled out of last November.

...Stick a fork in the projects off the Jersey Shore – they are done.
Global offshore wind developer Orsted said Tuesday night that it is pulling out of both of its projects scheduled to be built off the coast of New Jersey, a move that enraged Gov. Phil Murphy and could be a big blow to the state’s renewable energy ambitions.
The Danish company made the announcement after a decision by its board of directors. Both the Ocean Wind 1 and 2 projects, which would have had the capacity to produce 2.2 gigawatts of renewable energy, will be scrapped.

NJ's rodential governor, Phil Murphy, angrily clacked his verminous yellow teeth, swore vengeance at his renewable plans being foiled, and that the company would pay dearly for its perfidy.

Looks like they're going to write a check.

But, tragically, a check that Murphy's going to turn around and dump into more Green grift despoiling the New Jersey shoreline.

US Offshore Wind Port Developer Lands USD 50 Million Investment
Homecoming Capital, an investor in zero-emission infrastructure, has made an initial USD 50 million (approximately EUR 46.2 million) commitment to Clean Energy Terminals (CET), a developer of US offshore wind port infrastructure.
Under the agreement, CET will leverage Homecoming’s investment to execute early-stage development work on a portfolio of newbuild and redeveloped offshore wind ports along the US east and west coasts.
Upon completion, CET’s projects will address the critical infrastructure gap that is currently constraining the US offshore wind industry, said Homecoming.

If you read the article, you'll see the folks knee-deep in this deal were all senior executives at Murphy's New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which handled:

...the development and construction of the USD 1B+ New Jersey Wind Port (NJWP), the country’s first purpose-built offshore wind marshalling and manufacturing port facility.

One hand washes the other, no?

VERY DECEIVING! This is one of the developers "simulations" of wind turbine visibility off our beaches, Holyoke Ave in Beach Haven. It shows 157 wind turbines out of the total 732 total turbines or just 21.4% of total # of turbines. 575 turbines are missing from this simulation.

pic.twitter.com/z1KiUlfP67— SaveLBI (@saveLBIorg) May 29, 2024

Place is gonna look great when Biden, Murphy, and the crew get through with it.

No other state will have this many turbines, this close to its shoreline, making NJ the most industrialized coastline in America.

pic.twitter.com/DVCPiQTEH4— SaveLBI (@saveLBIorg) February 23, 2024

We can't elect enough Republicans soon enough because every bit of good news has five lousy things coming in behind it.

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