ARBA Renewable Energies is a company born in Galicia in 2019, in the heat of the revival of Renewable Energies and at the dawn of a pandemic, which in less than four years grew its project portfolio to 3 GW. The international crisis that COVID 19 entailed did not prevent founding partners Gustavo Jurado and José Manuel Perales from doubling their business figures between 2020 and 2021, and going from a team of three to nearly 30 employees in just four years. The company’s turnover this year is forecast to be close to EUR 5 million.
Part of the success for this controlled growth lies in ARBA’s alliances with large firms in the sector, a completely flexible organisation and the great experience of its founders:
-- CEO, Gustavo Jurado, developed his career for nearly 20 years in large companies in the sector, such as Iberdrola or Inveravante.
-- His partner, José Manuel Perales, after working for companies such as Arteche, Gamesa or Iberdrola, founded SIMM group, a Brazilian company in business for over 12 years. SIMM group has more than 1,000 employees and is in full international expansion. The company offers comprehensive turnkey construction services, and renewable energy O&M, with presence in Spain and 5 other countries in South America.
ARBA Renewable Energies has three other directors with remarkable careers. Juan Carlos López (Chief Operations Officer), Sergio Perales (Chief Financial Officer) and Federico Silva (Chief Corporate Officer and Head of Legal) together have more than 70 years of experience and have worked for reference companies in the sector.
Consolidation and international expansion
ARBA Renewable Energies currently has offices in Madrid, Coruña (Spain) and Natal (Brazil) and manages a portfolio of more than 3 GW under development, spread across more than 30 wind and photovoltaic projects, over half of which are at an advanced stage of development. This portfolio includes projects managed for clients and partners, as well as self-owned projects.
"Our main objective is to consolidate and successfully conclude projects in a mature stage of development," says Gustavo Jurado. ARBA's latest big step was to sign a strategic contract last June with the Danish giant Ørsted to jointly develop "an ambitious portfolio of projects in Spain," he adds.
Among their most immediate future plans is an expansion in new markets.
"2023 will be the year of international growth: our intention is to try to replicate our successful model in Spain in other countries, based on our extensive international experience and our knowledge of markets such as Brazil, Chile, the United States, Germany and others."
Menawhile, ARBA is also keeping an eye on business opportunities in offshore wind, green hydrogen or energy storage, where the team has a great deal of personal experience.
Turnkey projects
ARBA Renewable Energies manages a portfolio of wind and photovoltaic projects in co-development format together with several top-level investors in the current scene. "This is a pioneering model that arose, explains Gustavo Jurado, from the appetite for investment in Renewable Energy that took place in our country mainly as a result of the reactivation of the sector in early 2016."
The activity of the Spanish firm begins with the identification of the land, covers all the administrative processing until obtaining the municipal licenses (ready-to-build status) and continues even after entry into commercial operation. According to its founder, the administrative process is the most important and complicated phase in the life of the project, since "not all developers are so careful when it comes to designing the project and dealing with the administration. For us, each and every project we manage is very special and a priority."
Competitive advantage
The distinct advantage that ARBA offers the market lies in its differentiated ability to carry out this process from start to finish:
-- accumulated know-how in all project phases,
-- the impressive track record of its team,
-- very realistic design criteria and commitment to all parties involved in the projects, and
-- an extraordinary, young and highly diversified team.
These allow the company to integrate all the necessary requirements to achieve the coveted approval by public administrations: from the most complex engineering, through the management of technical documentation (environmental impact study, reports of affections to public and private agencies, etc.) and the processing at all administrative levels.
A broad knowledge of the business, extensive experience and the care they put into each and every one of their projects has enabled ARBA to achieve a success rate well above the industry average: "We are very careful with the sites from the moment they are identified and we closely monitor each phase of development in order to minimise the social impact, avoid administrative paralysis and at the same time provide the project with a reasonable profitability."
Before starting construction, each renewable energy facility must pass several milestones that can take several years and involve different administrations. This goes from the relevant municipalities to the regional and central governments. In this sense, Jurado warns that there is a serious risk of non-compliance with European objectives if these procedures are not effectively streamlined, "in order to achieve renewable generation targets that will allow lower electricity prices as soon as possible and drastically reduce dependence on Russian gas in the future."
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