Vast nears $900m NYSE listing as it looks to crack ‘missing piece’ in renewable puzzle

Vast Solar has turned to the US at Australia’s expense with a $900m listing on Wall Street planned for this year as it looks make renewable energy cheaper for households.

Australian solar energy outfit Vast says its ability to store energy from the sun at a fraction of the price of batteries is the country’s answer to offering cheap renewable energy two months out from a $US586m ($900m) listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Vast’s chief executive Craig Wood tells The Australian his company has been solving a problem that government and business are only now just beginning to realise in that solar power and hydrogen have limitations as part of a push to net zero.

Currently backed by Johnny Kahlbetzer’s AGCentral, Vast is scheduled to hit the boards of Wall Street by Thanksgiving if final approvals from the US Securities and Exchange Commission go to plan.

The listing would follow the signing of a Business Combination Agreement with so called blank cheque company Nabors Energy Transition Corp I in February, which is an affiliate of US-listed oil and gas drilling fleet group Nabors Industries.

Mr Wood said as part of the final push to becoming a listed company it would reveal names of major strategic partners that will invest in Vast including major worldwide utility companies, airlines, and shipping groups.

“The names that we have secured as strategic partners will be surprising to say,” he said.

Investors announced so far include Canberra Airport, which has agreed to purchase up to $US10m in shares ordinary shares at an approximate price of $US10.20 per share to help it achieve decarbonisation targets and to produce low-cost sustainable aviation fuel.

Mr Wood said the decision to shun a listing on the resources heavy ASX for the US was the result of a lack of capital available to get off the ground domestically.

“The US listing allows us to tap into what are much deeper capital markets for the sort of technology and size of cheques. That depth is crucial for the next stage in our development,” he said.

Vast’s 1.1MW demonstration project in Forbes.

“We did explore raising capital here in Australia and there is lots of capital for early-stage endeavours and plenty for mature projects. But we are in the middle of both and that is challenging to secure capital.”

A Wall Street presence will also enable Vast to compete for funding as part of the US government’s Inflation Reduction Act which is designed to mobilise private capital to achieve decarbonisation.

Vast has developed a proprietary next-generation concentrated solar power (CSP) system that provides clean, dispatchable renewable energy for utility-scale power, industrial heat and clean fuel production applications.

Having built a grid-connected 1.1MW demonstration facility in Forbes, the technology is designed to gather energy from the sun, which is then stored in molten salt for later dispatch as either power or heat.

Mr Wood said that Vast needed to be build a commercial scale plant to be able to demonstrate and unlock a pipeline of projects.

“From there it is just as quickly we can scale the business in those core sunny markets that keeps costs down and delivers reliable energy,” he said.

In addition to chasing the lucrative US market and having a strong presence in Australia, the last cornerstone of what Mr Wood describes as its “sunny countries” market that offer favourable weather conditions is the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia is undertaking a massive greenfield project called Neom and they will need lots of overnight power and heat for industry, which offers us lots of opportunity. It is also on the Red Sea where a huge volume of container ships pass,” Mr Wood said.

He added that Vast’s technology made it well placed to solve problems facing Australia’s power grid, notably the transition to greener power sources and rising power bills.

“For a long time we have been solving a problem people didn’t realise they had,” he said.

“Australia needs long duration electricity storage and we can do it for consumers at the cheapest price, while the second problem we solve is offering heat for industry and that is also the cheapest form of heat that is green.

Artist impression of Vast's VS1 project that it plans to build in Port Augusta.

Mr Wood said that renewable energies needed to be low cost if governments wanted to roll them out to consumers.

“We talk about battery and hydrogen as key to going to net zero, but people are starting to see that while batteries are great, they have limitations and are not cheap,” he said.

He was adamant that its solar thermal technology was not the complete but if you was able to provide long-term overnight storage of solar power then it would be part of the solution to enabling affordable power to the grid.

The listing on Wall Street will secure funding to construct 230MW of projects, including a 30MW grid-connected facility in Port Augusta that is expected to become operational in 2025, and the world’s first 20 ton per day solar methanol facility that will be co-located with and partially powered by the 30MW plant.

It has also secured $110m in concessional financing from the Federal government, and up to $65m non-dilutive grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) as part of its plans in Port Augusta. The SM1 methanol plant is being funded in part by the German-Australian Hydrogen Innovation with the plan to export solar thermal power to Germany.

Originally published as Vast nears $900m NYSE listing as it looks to crack ‘missing piece’ in renewable puzzle