"In Sweden's far north, two investors are rolling out a playbook that could break the financial bottleneck that has bedeviled emerging green industries.
So far, they have hatched the world's first large-scale steel mill powered by green hydrogen and a fast-growing battery maker that has raised more than $9 billion. Next up are heat pumps.
The strategy behind the two companies is the opposite of the build-it-and-they-will-come hope of many startups.
Instead, H2 Green Steel and battery maker Northvolt lined up customers and used those commitments to raise money. Often, the customers are also investors.
H2's factory is going up in the Swedish town of Boden, about 50 miles from the Arctic Circle. Due to start operating in 2025, it will produce 2.5 million metric tons of steel a year while emitting 5% as much carbon dioxide per ton as a coal-powered blast furnace. It is roughly 100 miles down the road from Northvolt's first low-carbon gigafactory.
Driving the strategy are Swedish financier Harald Mix and business executive Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, who launched H2 Green Steel through Vargas Holding, their investment firm. "It's a fantastic formula for how we can actually enable the transition of energy-intensive industries," Mix said.
Neither man set out to launch green companies. Mix founded Altor Equity Partners, a European private-equity firm, where he remains a partner. They first collaborated on a plan to use batteries to reduce electricity costs at telecommunications providers, which were straining under growing demand for data.
That early success was the trigger for their green ambitions. They created Northvolt to start building something similar to Tesla's electric-vehicle supply chain in Europe.
Another Swede, Peter Carlsson, joined as Northvolt's founding chief executive, despite Lagercrantz accidentally calling him at 4 a.m. Lagercrantz didn't realize that Carlsson, who had recently resigned as Tesla's supply-chain chief, was in California at the time. Carlsson was unfazed because he was used to getting calls from Elon Musk at all hours of the night.
At both Northvolt and H2 Green Steel, coalitions of big companies and investors agreed they could gain an edge by going green. The companies both secured purchase commitments from Volkswagen and other early customers. They boosted their green credentials by tapping Scandinavia's abundant hydroelectric power.
Buyers were willing to pay premium prices for as-yet nonexistent products, in part to add marketing sheen. Volkswagen's Porsche brand will use green steel in its sports cars.
More important, companies face increasing pressure to hit voluntary emissions targets and comply with green regulations. Prices in the European Union's emissions-trading system have risen in recent years, creating an incentive for reducing greenhouse gases.
H2 Green Steel has agreed to sell 40% of its early production at a roughly 25% premium over steel's usual going rate, a spokesperson said. That helped it raise 1.5 billion euros of equity, equivalent to more than $1.6 billion, and it expects to complete a 3.5 billion euro debt-funding deal early next year.
Mix and Lagercrantz see green-steel demand outpacing supply for years. The same dynamic, they say, is opening up investing opportunities in other industries that are hard to wean off fossil fuels. "The demand is becoming predictable," Mix said.
Companies that have both bought from Northvolt and invested in it include Volkswagen and BMW. Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen-owned truck maker Scania and others have invested in H2 Green Steel as well as ordering steel.
The investors aim to prove the technologies work, drive down costs and create profitable companies. Still, the conditions that allow this kind of investment to work may only exist in Europe right now.
Using customer commitments to raise finance for capital-intensive projects isn't new. Renewable-energy projects sell power in advance, for example. In a similar way, startups building facilities to suck carbon dioxide out of the air are attracting commitments from polluting companies to pay for carbon removal years in advance.
Vargas applied that strategy to solve a problem currently hobbling the shift away from fossil fuels. Green manufacturing businesses have big upfront costs but come with more uncertainty. That, along with higher interest rates, has hit many green startups.
H2 has competition, including from Swedish rival SSAB, which hopes to be producing commercial volumes of green steel in 2026." [1]
1. New Model Emerges in Sweden for Financing Green Business. Ballard, Ed. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 22 Dec 2023: B.11.
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