{"id":19633,"date":"2018-02-02T12:31:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T17:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=19633"},"modified":"2018-02-02T12:31:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T17:31:21","slug":"fpl-parent-nextera-energy-admits-solar-and-wind-far-better-investments-than-pipelines-2018-01-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2018\/02\/fpl-parent-nextera-energy-admits-solar-and-wind-far-better-investments-than-pipelines-2018-01-26.html","title":{"rendered":"FPL parent NextEra Energy admits solar and wind far better investments than pipelines 2018-01-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nEven Sabal Trail partner NextEra Energy’s earnings call has\r\nfar more about record solar and wind deployment and earnings\r\n(“added $0.67 per share”)\r\nthan about pipeline declining earnings (“added $0.10 per share”)\r\nand misinformation,\r\n\r\nclaiming Sabal Trail is operational\r\nand on schedule<\/a> when\r\n\r\nit isn’t<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nWhich is better, NextEra, $0.67 or $0.10 per share?\r\nOh, wait, effectively you answered that:\r\n“As the world’s current leader in wind, solar, and storage\r\ndevelopment….”<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Solar,<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\nSolar<\/a>, NextEra Energy\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOne sentence is NextEra’s only mention of Sabal Trail; nothing about\r\nthe Sierra Club lawsuit against FERC\r\nthat less than a week later saw\r\n\r\nthe DC Circuit Court reject all requests for rehearing<\/a>,\r\nmeaning as early as next week the court may mandate shutting down Sabal Trail.\r\nNextEra company FPL is the sole remaining customer listed in Sabal Trail’s\r\ncustoner index.\r\nMaybe it’s time to bail out and get on with solar power in the Sunshine State.\r\n

NextEra Energy, via Motley Fool,\r\n26 January 2018,\r\n\r\nNEE earnings call for the period ending December 31, 2017<\/a>,\r\n

\r\nCEO and Chairman James L. Robo:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFourth, we’re advancing our renewable product offerings as we\r\nprepare for the next phase of renewable development. As a result,\r\nour prospects for new renewables growth has never been stronger. As\r\n\r\n\r\nexpected, congress did not make any retroactive changes to the PTC\r\nor ITC, which were each extended under a five-year phasedown at the\r\nend of 2015. With incentives, wind is the cheapest form of energy at\r\n1.2-1.8 cents per kilowatt hour at high wind sites while solar\r\ncontinues to be priced at a discount to other forms of generation at\r\n2.5-3.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Taken together, we continue to be\r\nin the best renewables environment in our history as evidenced by\r\nour 2017 results.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe ongoing cost declines in renewables are leading to increased\r\neconomic demand from customers. Wind turbine technology continues to\r\nimprove through a combination of taller towers and wider rotor\r\ndiameters. Today, we’re installing 127-meter rotor diameter\r\nturbines. By 2021, we expect manufacturers to be selling\r\napproximately 150-meter rotor diameter turbines in the US market,\r\nfurther increasing net capacity factors and helping reduce installed\r\nwind costs on a $1.00 per kilowatt basis.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOver the past year, we’ve seen an approximate 30% reduction in\r\nturbine costs. Through the end of the decade, we expect another 10%\r\ndecline per year on average. As a result, we continue to expect\r\nthat, without incentives early in the next decade, wind is going to\r\nbe a 2.0-2.5 cent per kilowatt hour product.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFor solar, we continue to see rapid price declines and efficiency\r\nimprovements and we’re well positioned to mitigate any impacts of\r\nthe recently announced tariffs from the ITC 201 proceeding. As we\r\npreviously discussed, before any tariffs were put in place, we\r\npurchased modules for our 2017 and 2018 build. We recently completed\r\nan additional order that covers our module needs for 2019 and a\r\nsignificant portion of our 2020 build.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nUltimately, we expect that by 2020, as the tariff steps down, the\r\nmarket will have adjusted to these new dynamics. By early in the\r\nnext decade, as further cost declines are realized and module\r\nefficiencies continue to improve, we expect that without incentives,\r\nsolar will be a 3.0-4.0 cent per kilowatt hour product, below the\r\nvariable cost required to operate an existing coal or nuclear\r\ngenerating facility of 3.5-5.0 cents per kilowatt hour.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nAs the world’s current leader in wind, solar, and storage\r\ndevelopment<\/a>, we are uniquely positioned for the next phase\r\nrenewables deployment that pairs low cost wind and solar energy with\r\na low cost battery storage solution to provide a product that can be\r\ndispatched with enough certainty to meet customer needs for a firm\r\ngeneration resource. We believe no other company has our expertise\r\nin all three products — wind, solar, and battery storage\r\n— to leverage the combined technologies at the low cost we can\r\nachieve. In fact, we recently submitted a bid at a very competitive\r\nprice for a combined wind, solar, and battery storage product, that\r\nis able to provide an around the clock, nearly firm, shaped product\r\nspecifically designed to meet the customers’ needs.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nBy leveraging Energy Resources’ competitive advantages, including\r\nour development skills, purchasing power, best in class construction\r\nexpertise, resource assessment capabilities, strong access to and\r\ncost of capital advantages, and the ability to combine wind, solar,\r\nand battery storage solutions together, we remain well positioned to\r\ncapture a meaningful and growing share of the renewables market\r\ngoing forward.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nBut what about natural gas?\r\nOh, they’re selling that off:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFinally, in addition to increasing and extending our financial\r\nexpectations, and having what I believe to be the best opportunity\r\nset in our industry, we continue to maintain one of the strongest\r\nbalance sheets in our sector. Through the sale of noncore assets\r\nover the last two years, including fibernet and our Forney, Lamar,\r\nand Marcus Hook gas generation assets, we’ve recycled almost $4\r\nbillion of capital while advancing our strategy to become more\r\nlong-term contracted and rate regulated.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd more, from CFO and Exec. VP Finance John Ketchum:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nAll of our major capital initiatives, including one of the largest\r\nsolar expansions ever in the eastern US, remain on track.\r\nIn 2017, FPL continued executing on its outstanding customer value\r\nproposition, delivering its best ever service relatability\r\nperformance while maintaining a typical customer bill that is more\r\nthan 25% below the national average and the lowest among the top ten\r\ninvestor owned utilities by market cap.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAs Jim mentioned earlier, 2017 was the best period for new wind and\r\nsolar origination in our history. The Energy Resources team added\r\nmore than 2,700 megawatts of new renewables projects to our backlog,\r\nincluding the largest combined solar and storage facility in the\r\nUnited States announced to date, and roughly 700 megawatts of\r\nadditional wind repowering to our backlog.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOver the course of the year, we commissioned roughly 2,150 megawatts\r\nof wind and solar projects in the US, including the first\r\napproximately 1,600 megawatts of our repowering program. All in all,\r\n2017 was a terrific year of execution at FPL and Energy Resources….\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEach of our ongoing capital deployment initiatives continues to\r\nprogress well. We were pleased to completed construction of the\r\nfirst four 74.5 megawatt solar energy centers governed by the solar\r\nbased rate adjustment, or SoBRA, mechanism of the rate case\r\nsettlement agreement, on schedule and under budget. An additional\r\nfour solar site totaling nearly 300 megawatts are currently on track\r\nto being providing cost effective energy to FPL customers later this\r\nquarter.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWe also continue to advance the development of the additional 1,600\r\nmegawatts of solar projects that are planned for beyond 2018 and\r\nhave secured potential sites that could support more than five\r\ngigawatts for FPL’s ongoing solar expansion.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nBut what about natural gas?\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThis month, we completed the early retirement of the St. John’s\r\nRiver Power Park, an approximately 1,300 megawatt coal fire plant co\r\nowned with JEA. Construction on the approximately 1,750-megawatt\r\nOkeechobee Clean Energy Center remains on schedule and on budget.\r\nAdditionally, progress on the Dania Beach Clean Energy Center\r\ncontinues to advance through the regulatory approval process.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nNone of that requires Sabal Trail, which isn’t shipping any gas anyway.\r\n

\r\n\r\nAnd back to solar and wind power<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn total, new renewables investments added $0.67 per share.\r\nContributions from new natural gas pipeline investments added $0.10\r\nper share.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nBut what about natural gas?\r\n

\r\n

Partially offsetting new investment growth was a decline\r\nof $0.11 per share, and contributions from our existing generation \r\nassets, the majority of which is attributable to sales of Lamar,\r\nForney, and Marcus Hook natural gas fire generating assets in 2016.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nContributions from our gas infrastructure business declined by $0.19\r\nper share, $0.16 of which is attributable to the absence of the earn\r\nout adjustment that was recognized for the Texas pipelines in 2016.\r\nAll of the other effects had a negative impact of $0.19 per share,\r\nmostly driven by a year-over-year increase in interest expense.\r\nAdditional details are shown on the accompanying slide.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nNevermind failing pipelines, up with the sun!\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn 2017, Energy Resources advanced its position as the leading\r\ndeveloper and operator of wind, solar, and battery storage projects.\r\nSince the last call, we have signed contracts for 736 megawatts of\r\nnew renewables projects, including 512 megawatts of wind and 224\r\nmegawatts of solar. With today’s announced contracts, our 2017 and\r\n2018 wind backlog is now nearly 2,000 megawatts. With visibility to\r\nseveral hundred megawatts of additional projects for 2018, we\r\ncontinue to believe that we can achieve the range of expectations\r\nthat we have previously provided for 2017 and 2018.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFor 2019 and 2020, we are already just below the range of\r\nexpectations that we have provided for solar. And, for US wind, our\r\ncurrent backlog is already almost half of the low end of our\r\nexpected range. Additionally, our total current backlog of almost\r\n7,000 megawatts, including repowering for 2017-2020, is the largest\r\nfor a four-year period in Energy Resource’s history. The\r\naccompanying slide provides additional detail on where our\r\nrenewables development program now stands.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd look what finally gets mentioned, and mis-spelled<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBeyond renewables, 2017 was an excellent year for Energy Resources’\r\nnatural gas pipeline activities. During the year, both the Sable\r\nTrail transmission and Florida Southeast connection natural gas\r\npipeline projects successfully achieved commercial operation on\r\nbudget and on schedule. The Mountain Valley pipeline also made\r\nexcellent progress over the year, receiving its first limited notice\r\nto proceed from FERC earlier this week. We remain on track to\r\nachieve a year-end 2018 commercial operations date.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWait, there’s more about wind:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWind resource returned to normal after a week third quarter, as\r\noverall wind resource was 102% of the long-term average during the\r\nfourth quarter. The appendix of today’s presentation includes a\r\nslide with additional details regarding 2017 wind resource for the\r\nNEP portfolio. For full-year 2017, adjusted EBITDA and CAFD were\r\n$743 million and $246 million, up 16% and 11% respectively, driven\r\nprimarily by growth of the underlying portfolio. Additional details\r\nare shown on the accompanying slide.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo one sentence about Sabal Trail, a few paragraphs about pipelines,\r\nand many about how great solar and wind are and how NextEra is a “world leader”\r\nand positioned to win in renewable energy.\r\nCut your losses and eject some more stranded investments, NextEra:\r\nditch Sabal Trail.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today<\/a>!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even Sabal Trail partner NextEra Energy’s earnings call has far more about record solar and wind deployment and earnings (“added $0.67 per share”) than about pipeline declining earnings (“added $0.10 per share”) and misinformation, claiming Sabal Trail is operational and on schedule when it isn’t. Which is better, NextEra, $0.67 or $0.10 per share? Oh, […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6124,6687,24,36],"tags":[10120,6995,1763,8701,10121,10122,8702,12,7,10119,562,7134,6076,6597,8714,6,8716],"class_list":["post-19633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-gas-2","category-pipeline-2","category-solar","category-wind","tag-earings","tag-florida-southeast-connection","tag-fpl","tag-georgia","tag-james-l-robo","tag-john-ketchum","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-motley-fool","tag-natural-gas","tag-nextera-energy","tag-pipeline","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-solar","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-56F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19633"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19638,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19633\/revisions\/19638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}