The renewable power space is heading for a very bad year in the US and Europe, as supply chain issues and raw material inflation will impact not only the amount of business that gets completed, but also the margin on that business. The trade issues between the US and China on solar panels have essentially brought the industry to a halt for the moment and suggests that all forecasts of the growth in renewable power contributions in the US in 2022 are too high, and consequently demand estimates for natural gas and coal for power generation are too low – see out comments in the energy section of today's daily report. The EIA forecast below likely fails to take into account the current woes and if governments, at the federal and the state levels act on the information in the chart they may be unprepared for some power shortages later in the year. Overestimation of the rate of renewable power installation as well as its operating rate is responsible for many of the current power shortages that we see in most regions.
Anyone who read our ESG and Climate reports of the last two weeks will know that we do not believe in the hydrogen projections below as we see renewable power as a potentially scarce resource. Furthermore and also covered yesterday, should the API be successful with its carbon tax proposal in the US and should this be additive to the 45Q incentive for CCS, we could see an explosion of blue hydrogen investments in the US, especially on the Gulf Coast.
In our ESG and Climate report tomorrow we are focusing on the wind industry and specifically the problems that Siemens Gamesa is facing with execution, costs, and logistics. The estimates for China and the rest of the world in the chart below assume a significant step-up in the rate of installation, and in 2022 we are seeing an industry that is struggling with that. Siemens Gamesa is having problems with its new platform, which had been intended to deliver projects more cheaply from an installed cost basis and an operating costs basis and is perhaps an illustration of what can happen when you are trying to move too quickly – partly because your customers are demanding it. Operational problems at Siemens Gamesa have been compounded by logistic challenges and raw material price and availability, such that current expectations are for the company to break even at an EBITDA level in 2022. This is another great example of the policy and investor disconnects that we see in several aspects of energy transition – we are encouraging investment in front line capacity, but not in the materials and feedstocks needed to feed the front line – metals, natural gas, crops. See our recent body of ESG and Climate work for more on this. These subjects are at the heart of many of the private engagements that we have with several clients in this space.
We include a couple of headlines and charts in today's daily report that step into the central theme of this week’s ESG and climate report, which will be published tomorrow (see here). The offshore wind ambitions and the EIA solar and battery projections both assume that the materials are available to build the capacity. In the case of the offshore wind leases, the winning bidders do not need to be in the market for all of the projects today and while the opportunities will lead to a step-change in demand for turbines in the US, the timing is less clear today that it will be in a few months and that timing may be adjusted to reflects equipment timing and costs, etc.