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Extranet InovContacto > Visão Contacto > Posts > "I think solar and wind offshore will be the bigger movers" said Anthony Lizama, who works in EDP Renewables, to INOV Contacto trainee José Coelho
"I think solar and wind offshore will be the bigger movers" said Anthony Lizama, who works in EDP Renewables, to INOV Contacto trainee José Coelho

José Coelho | C24 | EDP Renewables | Houston, USA

Solar Park in Trenton, USA

Anthony Lizama has been with EDP Renewables for four and a half years even though he got his start in the energy industry in the fossil fuel sector. After studying petroleum engineering in school, he started his career as a field engineer working on hydraulic fracturing operations in South Texas. His position was eliminated in the oil price crash of 2014, after which he pivoted to renewable energy with EDPR. In his time with EDPR he has worked in four roles across the Development, Financial Planning & Analysis, and Investor Relations teams. In addition, he also obtained a Masters in Finance through part-time study while working at EDPR, and plans to go back to school for an MBA.

Nowadays, it is widely accepted that the growth of renewables is pivotal to our future. However, there are still some who oppose this view. Do you feel that there is still some resistance to the adoption of renewable energy sources? If so, why?

There is absolutely some resistance. Some support fossil fuels for personal reasons (political, job creation, etc.) even though they may believe that it will cause harm in the long term. The thought being that nothing we can do is really going to help, so why lose money now. You also have scientists that look at the data and legitimately believe that greenhouse gas emissions from humans have had little to no impact on the world’s climate. They agree that we are seeing warming, just believe it is from natural causes not impacted by our actions.

In which ways do you think the political power might shape the public opinion on renewables?

In the US, energy is very much affected by politics as we have some of the largest fossil fuel companies in the world based here, along with a decent amount of domestic oil reserves, combined with less than ideal corruption and campaign finance regulations. This is the main reason, I believe, why the US continues to see more anti-renewable sentiment than most other developed countries.

Do you agree that the goal of having 100% of energy come from renewable sources will be attainable in the near future? If not, will it ever be possible?

In the near future, no, I don’t think we’re close. There are too many problems to solve. In the US specifically, with the lower population density compared to other developed countries, passenger cars are much more cost-effective for transportation compared to public transit so you need full adaptation of electric vehicles. You also need hydrogen or something else developed on a large scale to offset the needs of fossil fuels to heat things for steel making and other industrial purposes. That’s a huge undertaking just to set up a system that could run on renewables. Combine that with the fact that in the US, you only have about 15% of the existing electric grid running on renewables, means we have a lot of work to do to fully run on renewables. Not saying we won’t get there, we will. We have to. But Rome wasn’t built in a day.

As we move towards this goal of having cleaner energy, which type of technology do you think will have the most important role (solar, wind onshore, offshore)?

Going forward I think solar and wind offshore will be the bigger movers. Both solve some of the fundamental issues with onshore wind. With onshore wind, you usually have an offset where you have higher wind resources when you have lower power demand. Solar fixes this problem. Also, with offshore wind, you can connect directly to cities with higher power usage. With both of these technologies still in their infancy, I think you are going to see a large increase in installations over the next few years.

In the last years, the idea of socially responsible investing has been gaining popularity. Do you think this has benefitted EDPR and will continue to do so in the future?

I can’t comment on the full impact so far. There has of course been an increase of investors who prefer ESG investments driving the creation of ESG certified investment funds. However, I’ m not sure if we have been able to access materially cheaper sources of capital because of this.

What other medium to long term goals does EDPR currently have?

Overall, the goals are both rapid growth as well as diversification. Our business plan has a path forward to push growth by selling-down existing assets to provide a cheaper source of capital to fund new projects. Also, we are looking to diversify our position both in terms of technologies and geographies. Through our partnership with Engie, we can begin large-scale investments in the emerging offshore wind space. We are also looking for M&A opportunities to enter the distributed generation space through smaller scale solar. In terms of geographies we have a team that is actively looking to find opportunities for us to move into new countries, allowing us to build new relationships and lay the groundwork for more opportunities in the future.

Imagem de destaque: Kelly Lacy, Pexels

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Created By: José Pedro Silva Coelho
Published: 05-05-2021 19:06

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