Greencoat Renewables recently purchased Gortahile wind farm in Co. Laois for an undisclosed sum from a Dutch owned company Glennmont Clean Energy. It has been operating for about eight years and has a capacity of 20MW. It was originally built by German company ABO Wind, then sold to a Danish green fund, then repurchased by ABO for €42 million in 2010. It was also apparently owned by a French company at some stage. It is now back in Irish hands.
It's accounts for last year show it made a profit of € 288k but with gains on financial instruments, comprising interest rate swaps, making up about 45% of these profits. Like depreciation, these financial instruments are non cash items. To get a better look at the financial position of the wind farm, one needs to look at the cash flow statement.
The actual cash generated after paying interest was €1.5 million. The company repaid borrowers to the tune of € 2 million and so incurred a cash deficit of about half a million euros. However, they still showed total cash assets of € 2 million thanks to the waiver of a € 3.6 million parent company loan in 2017.
The wind farm's short term liabilities exceeded its short term assets by € 90k, which means it was unable to meet it's debts as they fell due. The Dutch parent company had vouched it's willingness to provide enough income to keep the wind farm in operation till 2019. At the end of last year, it had combined losses of €2.3 million and debts of over € 18 million.
Will Greencoat need to prop up the wind farm with more cash? It remains a bit of a mystery why a wind farm in such difficulties has generated so many buyers but perhaps it's telling that the recent price tag was not disclosed.
My You Tube channel Val Martin Real True Educational - Not Fake News deals with the financial crisis facing Irish wind farms in series No 17. Gortahaile was built in 2011. The crisis should soon be entering a critical phase as the harsh reality confronts them all that they over estimated the wind speed.
ReplyDeleteThere will be plenty of funds available to the incoming Green Minister after the forthcoming election to enable Ireland to DECARBONISE! As incoming Taoiseach, Leo will have the full extent of the Irish Sovereign Wealth Fund at his disposal.
ReplyDelete"Our sovereign wealth fund has divested from fossil fuels," declaimed the Taoiseach at the UN climate summit in New York last Monday - news which should gladden the hearts of taxpayers and climate campaigners alike".
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/colm-mccarthy-varadkar-bans-drilling-for-oil-never-found-in-irelands-waters-38543836.html
Reuters reported last month that 78 Norwegian municipalities out of the 101 included in the 13 areas deemed most suitable for wind farms were against onshore wind power. Recharge News have a follow-up (see below) that reports that the Norwegian government said a consultation on the plan prompted 5,000 responses from private individuals who do not want wind power in their municipality.
ReplyDeleteRural Ireland mobilised in 2014 with 35000 critical responses to the EirGrid Grid Link 400kV pylon project. Here's the thing - the same mindset still pervades government ministerial and department thinking. There is a real risk that all our futures will be put in even more hock to foreign investors in the misguided pursuit of a national wind energy strategy espoused by snake oil salesmen.
See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-windfarm-politics-idUSKBN1WA177
and https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/1865494/norway-scraps-national-wind-power-plan-after-protests
and https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/35000-contact-eirgrid-over-pylon-proposals-255006.html