Siemens Energy’s long-anticipated bid to bring troubled wind OEM Siemens Gamesa under its full control is underway – and the German group this week made no bones about the urgency of the matter.
Launching an offer to buy the one third of shares it does not own, Siemens Energy executives described a “deteriorating situation” that must be addressed “as quickly as possible” at the manufacturer.
Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch admitted it would take “multiple years” to fix all the issues at Siemens Gamesa, arguing that full ownership would offer a “faster and more effective” route to resolving the internal and external challenges that have driven it to several profit warnings.
One of Siemens Gamesa’s immediate challenges was on stark display as the OEM shuttered its US production plants amid a slowdown stoked by regulatory uncertainty and exacerbated by a legal battle with GE.
The fact that Siemens Gamesa is far from the only major wind turbine group to face big market challenges was underlined when Nordex cited a perfect storm of negatives – the Ukraine invasion, new lockdowns in China and a cyberattack – as it predicted a $200m-plus sales hit and a 2022 loss.
The greater the buzz around green hydrogen, the greater the need for clarity on the key issues facing the fast-growing sector.
Recharge has been at the forefront of separating hope from hype, and our coverage of the first Green Hydrogen Global Assembly in Barcelona cut to the heart of the issues tackled at an event that set its sights no lower than changing the world and featured “ambition, realism and anger”.
Among those burning issues is how, and whether, H2 can be shipped around the world once it starts emerging from future green hydrogen mega-projects. Commodities giant Trafigura reckons trading of green ammonia could start as soon as 2025, but pure H2 itself is unlikely to join it.
Recharge also reported how two of the biggest names in global renewables – Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen and Iberdrola chief Ignacio Galán – weighed into the green H2 debate this week.
Andersen cautioned that amid the frenzy around green hydrogen, it is important to remember that it depends on a renewable capacity boom to power its production – and warned that expansion is going too slowly.
For his part, Galan promised that Iberdrola would spend €3bn ($3.21bn) on green H2 by 2030, declaring “we can’t miss this train”.
The uncertainties currently gripping US renewables caused a first-quarter slowdown in commercial & industrial clean power procurement – one of the key indicators of energy transition progress – as buyers fretted over project timelines, Recharge reported.
While Q1 renewables installation hummed along thanks to strong solar and battery installations, industry body American Clean Power warned that the sector’s outlook is increasingly clouded by macroeconomic and policy issues.
Serious as those challenges are, few believe the long-term picture for US green power is anything but bright – as evidenced by oil giant TotalEnergies’ decision to increase its exposure to American renewables even more with a swoop for a half stake in developer Clearway Energy.
