The Diplomat
The New York Times highlights Iberdrola as a “leader” in wind and solar energy “thanks to the bet” made 20 years ago by its chairman, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, to renewables, reports Europa Press.
In an article published this week, the prestigious US newspaper highlights how since Galán took the reins of the energy company he has had “the mission to change the electricity industry” and how in 2015, when he tackled the purchase of United Illuminating (UIL) to form the group’s US subsidiary, Avangrid, “he was very clear that he saw the United States as having enormous potential in renewables”.
In this way, the newspaper considers that Iberdrola is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the boom in renewable energies in the world and in the United States in the coming years, following the arrival of Joe Biden’s administration.
He sees the group as one of the few utilities that analysts already see as “leaders of a new generation of ‘renewable majors'”, comparable to the influence of major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell.
In statements to the NYT, Galán pointed out that in 2001 he saw how the Kyoto Protocol, the first major international agreement to adopt measures to combat global warming, signed in 1997, represented “an opportunity” in this green shift.
Iberdrola’s chairman admits that his proposals seemed risky, “as they coincided with the spectacular collapse of Enron, another ambitious electric energy company”, although he was committed to the international expansion of the energy company, the newspaper indicates.
He recalls that he was attracted to invest in the United States when, during a visit, he noticed all the wooden poles that carried the power lines. “If a country with such technological power still needed wooden poles to transport its electricity, he concluded that there was plenty of room for a company like Iberdrola,” the NYT article says.
In this regard, the newspaper reports on Iberdrola’s plans to almost double its clean energy generation capacity over the next five years, with an investment of 35,000 million euros, not only in wind and solar energy, but also in emerging sectors such as hydrogen, which, according to the company, could be ready to take off just as wind energy did 20 years ago. Of these investments, almost 80% of them are focused outside its local market.
Regarding the arrival in the renewables sector of new players such as the major oil companies, Galán believes that this change in their strategies is a confirmation of Iberdrola’s decades of work. “I love that they are already using a photocopy” of the strategy that Iberdrola printed 20 years ago, he says.
