With lower than a month to go till the U.S. Presidential election, you would possibly assume election fever is operating excessive amongst European CEOs with a big U.S. presence.
However once I requested Iberdrola chairman Ignacio Galan yesterday if he was nervous about the way forward for his multi-billion-dollar investments in offshore wind within the U.S. ought to Donald Trump turn out to be president once more, the chief of the world’s third-largest utility was remarkably unphased.
“We’ve been with Trump before,” he stated. “It’s not new for us.”
I had anticipated a extra involved outlook from Galan, whose firm skilled a public blowback in Massachusetts this Summer season after a GE windmill it was attributable to begin working quickly, broke, and fell into the ocean. The dangerous headlines coincided with the Trump marketing campaign repeating debunked claims that windmills are “killing our birds” and that offshore wind farms are driving whales “crazy”.
Whatever the election consequence, Iberdrola, a Fortune World 500 firm, expects to double down on its renewable investments within the U.S., Galan informed me. That’s thanks largely to the long-term “predictability” the Inflation Discount Act led to, but in addition as a result of a earlier Trump presidency barked however didn’t chew on renewable vitality developments.
“When Trump arrived, [Obama era] support [for renewables] was maintained,” he stated.
Another excuse for Galan’s downplaying of the presidential election consequence might be that financial fundamentals—quite than political rallying cries—are driving European international direct funding selections within the US. For Iberdrola, Galan stated, the necessity to improve America’s outdated electrical grid is what drives 80% of the corporate’s presence within the U.S.—not renewables.
Or, to say it with a punchline: with massive knowledge facilities requiring ever extra vitality, and the electrification of the vitality sector persevering with unabated, Iberdrola is extra involved with making America’s grid nice once more than “Make America Great Again.”
With financial situations in Europe bleak, different European executives might do effectively to observe Galan’s pragmatic American playbook, whoever succeeds Biden in January.
Extra information beneath.
Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
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