News Flash: Siemens Energy Struggles While GE Benefits from Cancellations

Siemens Energy reported massive losses in its wind turbine business while GE Vernova avoids over $1B in losses thanks to offshore project cancellations; the two companies face very different futures, with Siemens Energy planning to break even by 2026 and GE Vernova looking to boost profitability ahead of its renewable energy IPO. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. And this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you need actionable information about renewable projects or technologies, check out IntelStor at intelstor.com. Siemens Energy reported a net loss of 4. 6 billion euros for the full year 2023. This was due to steep losses in its wind turbine business, Siemens Gamesa. The company is restructuring the wind turbine business after it faced unexpected technical problems and inflation eroded margins. Now, Phil, the investor call and the press junket that Siemens Energy held this week was really interesting about what the approach is. And they didn't let out a lot about the future of Siemens Gamesa, just saying that they were going to lose a significant amount of money this year. Philip Totaro: So right now they're going to end up having to rely on revenue from the offshore wind turbine sales and both the onshore and offshore services business to make up for the lost revenue or lack thereof in terms of onshore sales because they've paused sales of the, the 5. x platform. Siemens Energy has already come out and said that they've got enough to be able to survive as Siemens Energy, because their other non wind businesses under the Siemens Energy umbrella are profitable. But the question is, how long are they going to let Siemens Gamesa run itself into the ground without substantial top line revenue and profitability? They're talking about break even in 2026, but they have not yet really presented a roadmap for how to get there. The other question to address is, okay, if they start... stripping assets, which I don't necessarily expect they're going to do. But if they decide to do that, what does that look like then? Obviously Siemens Energy survives with a kind of Danish German Siemens wind business kind of reconstituted. What happens to Gamesa? And how does that necessarily play out? The Spanish government wants to be able to protect one of its institutions. and there again have been suggestions that they're separately trying to get some money together, to bolster the company if it is, ends up being spun off. There's a lot of uncertainty and we're anxiously awaiting their capital markets day presentation, next week. Joel Saxum: While Siemens Energy right now is that it's a burning fire. Everybody's watching it and you're staring at this problem, trying to figure out what's happening. They're saying their outlook looks to break even by 2026, three years down the line. And three years down the line, there could be some massive shifts in the wind industry, right? And one of the things that I, that's not, was not talked about in any of these reports, is the pressure from the Chinese OEMs. And there's an active interest going on right here from the European, basically, Parliament. To possibly want to look into competition and whatno...