This week on News Flash, Vattenfall invests 5 billion euros in Germany through 2028, Octopus Energy has surpassed two billion dollars in offshore wind investments, and the Asian Development Bank has secured groundbreaking sovereign guarantees for climate finance.

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Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www. intelstor com.

Allen Hall: First up, Swedish utility Vattenfall is investing 5 billion euros in Germany through 2028, showing major commitment after selling their Berlin heating business. The company plans to build 500 megawatts of solar parks and 300 megawatts of large batteries annually. Two major offshore wind parks, the Nordelake 1 and 2, will add 1.

6 gigawatts of wind capacity. And they're also investing 500 million euros in EV charging infrastructure. Wow, Phil, Vattenfall's going a little crazy in Germany at the moment. This is a big investment.

Philip Totaro: Well, and it's coming at a kind of an interesting time because, there's been some, uh, hard to say whether it's mild or moderate disarray in the German government at this point particularly in terms of the level of support that is, is gonna be provided long term to, to renewables.

But Vattenfall at least understands and appreciates the fact that, they've got a pipeline that, that's pretty big besides the Nordlicht 1 and 2 projects. I think they've got an additional 1. 5 gigawatts of onshore wind and or solar and, and battery pipeline That they have in, in Germany.

So, they're, they're really swinging for the fences here and committing a rather large amount of capital at 5 billion Euro. So that's it, it's, again, it, it could be challenging short term timeframe, but long term they're positioning themselves to be, as big of a player in, in Germany as they, they are in some of the other markets outside of, of Sweden.

Where they operate.

Joel Saxum: I think a big part of this five billion euros as well as that Nordlicht one and two for 1. 6 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, because that's just a lot of money to build that big of wind farms offshore. But when you look onshore in Germany, it's a bit harder to develop wind.

You have permitting issues and those kind of things, but the tracks of land, it's not like we're here in the United States where we can put 100, 150 turbines out. The tracks of land are smaller, The setback limits are a lot bigger. They have different rules, right? It's a little operations and maintenance is a bit more difficult, more expensive because you have, it's like you have to test your lightning protection systems every two years.

You, you have to have multiple ice detection systems. If you're within a certain setback of a road, there's, there's all kinds of little nuances in Germany there. But Vattenfall clearly sees the the advantages of doing some business there. And I know that Germany as a whole. Like you said, Phil, they're in a little bit of a turmoil right now, but they need it.

So good on them.

Allen Hall: In our second story, Octopus Energy has surpassed two billion dollars in offshore wind investment...