Google Signs Up for 236 MW of Wind Energy from Norway, Sweden

Google has agreed to purchase an additional 236 MW of energy from two new wind farms in Norway and Sweden, adding to three other Swedish wind deals. The new, long-term contracts cover all of the output from a 50-turbine project near Stavanger, Norway, which is set to be completed in late 2017, and a 22-turbine project near Mariestad and Töreboda, Sweden, which will be completed by early 2018.

This brings Google's number of wind power power agreements in Europe to seven, totalling more than 500 MW.

Google has now signed 18 such wind power deals globally, representing nearly 2.5 gigawatts (GW) worldwide of contracted wind power output.

http://googlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/more-nordic-wind-power-for-our-european.html

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SES to Acquire 100% of O3b

SES exercised its call option and offered to acquire the remaining shares and warrants of O3b Networks, bringing its ownership stake from 49% to 100%.


Specifically, SES will pay US$730 million to directly increase its fully diluted ownership of O3b from 49.1% to 100%, using proceeds from the company’s recent equity raising. On completion, SES will consolidate USD$1.2 billion of O3b net debt and will, following completion, refinance a significant proportion of the most expensive debt facilities, using the proceeds secured by the recent hybrid bond issuance and the remaining proceeds from the equity raising. This will significantly reduce O3b average cost of debt of 9.5%, noting that SES's current average cost of financing is approximately 4%.

SES said O3b’s unique and global high throughput, low latency solution expands its own global reach and satellite-enabled solutions.

Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES, commented: “Moving to 100% of O3b will be highly accretive for SES, both from a strategic and economic standpoint. In addition to exceeding SES’s investment hurdle rates, full consolidation accelerates the delivery of important transformational and combinational synergies that are only possible with 100% ownership.”

http://www.ses.com

O3b Networks operates a constellation of 12 High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in a Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) around 8,000 kilometres from the Earth. The company offers customers a ‘fibre in the sky’ solution, with each of the constellation’s beams capable of delivering up to 1.6 Gbps of throughput at a low latency of less than 150 milliseconds, a significant improvement over geostationary connectivity. O3b has procured an additional eight satellites to accommodate rapidly-expanding demand, with four satellites expected to be launched during H1 2018, and the remaining four satellites expected to be launched in H2 2019. These procurements will increase the size of the current fleet from 12 to 20 satellites (including three satellites currently flying as in-orbit back-up). At ‘steady-state’ utilisation, which is targeted to be achieved by the end of the third year of a satellite’s commercial service, the full operational constellation is expected to generate annualised revenue of between US$32 million and US$36 million per satellite.

O3B Lands $460 Million to Expand Global Satellite Constellation

Thursday, December 10, 2015  O3b, Satellite  No Comments

O3b Networks closed $460 million in incremental financing to support its next-generation satellite network.  The company plans to use the money to expand the total number of satellites in its constellation from twelve to twenty.

O3b began full commercial operations in September 2014. The company said it now supports connectivity for more than 40 customers worldwide, with more than 50% of those customers having already upgraded their service commitments to O3b during the first year of commercial operation.

“This is an incredibly exciting time for O3b and its customers. Our constellation is highly scalable and can be grown in direct response to market demand. In only a little over a year from our full commercial launch, we can already see the need for substantially more capacity in orbit to serve our customers. We are the No.1 operator in the Pacific and, together with Royal Caribbean, we have revolutionized the cruise connectivity market. Our Telco customers are expanding their service offerings and growing their markets on the back of O3b’s performance and capability,” said Steve Collar, CEO of O3b Networks.

http://www.o3bnetworks.com

• O3b Networks’ investors include SES, Google, Liberty Global, HSBC Principal Investments, Northbridge Venture Partners, Allen & Company, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Sofina, Satya Capital and Luxempart. O3b Networks is headquartered in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands.

SpaceX Launches SES-9 on Falcon 9 Rocket

Saturday, March 05, 2016  Satellites, SES, SpaceX  No Comments

SpaceX successfully launched the SES-9 satellite using a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

SES-9 is SES’s largest satellite to serve the Asia-Pacific region. It weighed 5.3 tonnes at the launch and has 57 high-power Ku-band transponders – equivalent to 81x36 MHz transponders’ It thus provides significant expansion capacity to serve the buoyant and fast-growing video, enterprise, mobility and government sectors across Northeast Asia, South Asia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Boeing was lead contractor.

In addition, SES-9 is equipped with dedicated mobility beams to provide maritime coverage vessels on high-traffic maritime routes between the Suez Canal and Strait of Malacca.

The Falcon 9 rocket attempted to land on a drone ship in the Atlantic, but missed narrowly.

http://www.spacex.com

Gogo Leases Capacity on SES Next Gen Satellites

Tuesday, February 23, 2016  Gogo, Satellite, SES  No Comments

Gogo has contracted major High Throughput Satellite (HTS) spot beam and wide beam capacity aboard two SES next-generation HTS satellites, SES-14 and SES-15, which are set for launch in 2017.

The deal will enable Gogo to address the growing demand for high-speed inflight connectivity on travel routes over North America, including Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico and Canada, as well as Central America and the Caribbean. Gogo will also have access to HTS capacity on an additional satellite, SES-12, which is set to be launched in 2017 with high-powered spot beam and wide beam coverage over Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Russia.

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