An inconvenient truth for phlegmatic temperaments, but vocal protest often pays off when dissatisfied with the state of things.

As much was made abundantly and quite clear when Siemens announced its purchase of Iberdrola's 8-percent equity position in Siemens Gamesa in February. The Spanish utility, which ever since the merger of Siemens Wind Power and Gamesa has on several occasions voiced objections to the German majority stakeholder's swagger, just received payment of EUR 20 per share for its stock in the OEM – no less than 32 percent above the average from the last 30 trading days.

That transaction has since proven to be highly lucrative. Quite so, the turbine manufacturers' share price has recovered by a margin after it, just like the rest of sector, fell upon its nose when Covid-19 seriously started to spread through Europe in early March. Nonetheless, the price of EUR 1.1 billion Iberdrola fetched for leaving the proprietary circle was almost 50 percent higher than the last 30 days' average share price.

At the same time, the sale means that Iberdrola was able to announce an outstanding first quarter interim report. Selling the OEM's equity provided the Spanish power company with a capital injection of EUR 485.5 million and boosted the Q1 result up to EUR 1.257 billion – up 30 percent from the same period last year despite sliding 7 percent on revenue to roughly EUR 9.4 billion.

East Anglia struggle overcome

The sale of its stake in Siemens Gamesa, however, doesn't mean that Iberdrola has shrunk as a group. The Spanish company raises its investments to around EUR 1.7 billion from approximately EUR 1.4 billion from the same period last year. The utility's year-over-year renewable energy capacity expanded by 11.4 percent and now consists of 53.3 GW, 18 GW of which is wind power.

This is not least due to the addition of British offshore wind farm East Anglia One, which has currently entered partial operation, as Global Wind Service completed preassembly of the last 102 machines that will make up the facility's 714 MW. On Wednesday, Iberdrola subsidiary Scottishpower Renewables announced that the final turbines are now installed.

Iberdrola also landed a windfall in this regard. Even though Siemens Gamesa made the wind turbines, in this case the struggle was with one of the project's foundations suppliers, Saudi Arabian Lamprell.

The Saudi company has taken quite the economic blow because of problems with its jacket foundations, which were built at the financially imperiled Harland & Wolff yard in Ireland. After many months of playing tug-of-war, last week Lamprell revealed that it had struck a settlement deal with Iberdrola, entailing that the manufacturer's loss from the project surged by USD 22.6 million to USD 118.2.

English Edit: Daniel Frank Christensen

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