A proposed merger aims to create one of the largest renewable investment trusts in London. Vestas has bounced back from previous issues to receive its largest ever US turbine order. Brazilian turbine manufacturer WEG is emerging as a global wind power player through a new partnership with a European company.



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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, Joel Saxum. And this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at Intelstor. If you need actionable information about renewable projects or technologies, check out Intelstor at intelstor.com.



Octopus Renewable Infrastructure Trust has proposed merging with Aquila European Renewables. The deal aims to create one of the largest renewable energy investment trusts in London. The combined entity would have a market cap around 750 million pounds. We would also have a portfolio of roughly 1 billion pounds across Europe.



Phil, this is a big deal. I know it's in the early stages still, but if this were to happen, this is a ground shaking event.



Philip Totaro: It is because both companies have actually been growing their European portfolios. And so to take these two entities and put them together makes a pretty compelling case for one of the biggest certainly would be the biggest financially focused asset owner within Europe and potentially within the rest of the world.



Most of the world. Asset owners are independent power producers, utility companies, et cetera. But this would be one of, if not the biggest asset owner both wind and solar assets and energy storage as well. If they were to actually get this deal to go through. So it's worth keeping track of it.



Joel Saxum: Yeah. Interesting is it's basically when we talk of Octopus renewables infrastructure, trust. And then looking at Aquila, you're talking about it's a more than at the grand scheme of things, it's a fund, right? It's a financial asset owner. That is a lot a lot of interest in a lot of different places.



They being this size, they will have a pretty easy way of attracting capital to grow as well, in my opinion, right? If you're already this big and you're already making these kinds of moves the larger players within the the trading markets, your Vanguards, your BlackRocks, or these kinds of players are more apt to put money into larger groups like this as they grow as well.



Allen Hall: Vestas has received its largest ever order in the U S market.



A 1. 1 gigawatt deal to supply 242 V one 63, 4. 5 megawatt turbines for Pattern Energy's SunZia wind project in New Mexico. The order is also Vestas is largest single onshore project globally. This thing is huge. And obviously they held it out to the end of Q4, 2023, but it has ramifications all through 2024.



Philip Totaro: Absolutely. This deal gives them somewhere in the order of about 3. 6 gigawatts worth of V163 platform orders globally. Which is of course, a derivative product off of some of their previous designs, but it's a brand new blade and it's something they're really hoping is going to play well in the U. S. Market. So to have such a strong foothold with not only this deal with the SunZia project. But a few other orders for this product platform as well in the U. S. for undisclosed customers.