In March of 2020, Covid shut down economies, closed off supply chains, and sent unemployment to historic levels. No one knew what would come next for energy.
Oil prices went into negative territory. Industrial electricity use plummeted. Residential demand shot up. And there were big pipelines of renewable energy projects waiting to get built.
“I think we were all a little bit nervous about how COVID was going to affect all of the deal flow in the market,” says Britta von Oesen, a managing director at CohnReznick Capital.
Britta is the person at the table brokering tax structures and project sales that move money into renewable energy. So did Covid destroy her ability to get deals done?
“Honestly, it's gone a lot better than I would have expected,” she says.
M&A activity increased. And as 2021 kicked off, the M&A deals only accelerated. Most of the top independent wind and solar developers have been scooped up by utilities, private equity firms, oil majors, or bigger corporates. And the ones that haven't been acquired may be soon.
There is an intense turf battle over wind, solar and storage platforms in the US. So what is driving all this activity?
In this episode, brought to you by CohnReznick Capital, we speak with Britta Von Oesen about who's doing the acquiring, who's doing the selling, and what it all means for the growth of U.S. clean energy.
