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SPECIAL PURPOSE ENTITIES
12 Months Ended
Jan. 31, 2022
SPECIAL PURPOSE ENTITIES  
SPECIAL PURPOSE ENTITIES

NOTE 3 – SPECIAL PURPOSE ENTITIES

Variable Interest Entity

In January 2018, the Company was deemed to be the primary beneficiary of a VIE that is performing the project development activities related to the planned construction of a new natural gas-fired power plant. Consequently, the account balances of the VIE are included in the Company’s consolidated financial statements, including development costs incurred by the VIE during the project development period. The total amount of the project development costs included in the balances for property, plant and equipment was $7.5 million as of January 31, 2021. Consideration for the Company’s engineering and financial support provided to the project included the right to build the power plant pursuant to a turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (“EPC”) services contract that was negotiated and announced.

GPS provided financing for the development efforts through notes receivable from the consolidated VIE that was established by the project owner. GPS also provided technical support to the project. Significant development milestones were achieved by the project owner. However, a planned gas pipeline expansion that the project owner believed would supply natural gas to the power plant was rejected by Virginia’s State Corporation Commission during Fiscal 2022, which led to cancellation by PJM Interconnection LLC (“PJM”) of its interconnection service agreement with the project based on alleged failures of the project to meet required milestones. In February 2022, PJM, which operates the electricity grid in the region, received notice from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepting PJM’s termination of the service agreement which effectively removed the Chickahominy Power Station from PJM’s planning queue.

In summary, the project owner was unable to secure an alternative fuel-supply for the plant and the project lost its interconnection service commitment from PJM. Therefore, the project owner was unable to obtain the necessary equity financing for the project and GPS ceased providing project development funding. The repayment of the notes to GPS is overdue and the VIE has rejected the Company’s efforts to foreclose on the defaulted debt in an orderly fashion. Accordingly, the Company now believes that the completion of the development of this project has been significantly jeopardized and that it is doubtful that construction of this power plant will occur. Accordingly, during the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2022, we recorded an impairment loss related to the capitalized project development costs of this project in the amount of $7.9 million, of which $2.5 million was attributed to the non-controlling interest. In March 2022, the project owner publicly announced the cancellation of this power plant project.