US chooses Venezuelan oil over domestic wind, Poland’s offshore and gas push, UK’s M&A run

For the first Energy Transition Today episode of the year, we summarise the goings on over the past few weeks, starting with the US military intervention in Venezuela. The Trump administration’s intervention in Venezuela accompanied by a soft pledge to exploit the country’s oil resources has cast doubts over US’ energy transition targets. This move, barely two days into the new year, follows additional restrictions on 6GW of offshore wind capacity that is currently under construction. On this side of the pond, there has been slow but steady progress within the renewables sector with Gresham Houses new storage acquisition, Equitix increasing its ownership of offshore transmission assets, among other green infra-assets, and the gradual inflow of winner announcements under NESO’s Gate 2 tender. Poland, on the other hand, has defied all odds and successfully concluded its first offshore wind auction late last month. The country also proceeded to log impressive progress on grid upgrade projects that will facilitate the influx of offshore wind generation in the future. In addition, Poland has been steadily adding more gas peaking capacity to its generation portfolio to plug the gap left by its aging coal fleet. This move has widespread backing including from commercial banks.