Change Winds Blow for Renewable Energy Income Trusts
Renewable energy is still very much in its infancy, which means that companies in the space are either profitless or high-multiple startups, or divisions of much larger companies (GE Wind (NYSE:GE), or utilities such as FPL Group (NYSE:FPL) and Xcel (NYSE:XEL) which get much of their power from conventional generation.) This presents a dilemma for investors who understand the compelling drivers for the sector, but whose risk tolerance or financial needs indicate an income-based investing strategy. Canadian Income Trusts in Renewable Energy A few Canadian Income Trusts have historically gone some way towards filling this niche....
Water Treatment With a Latin Beat
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
The post “Water: Invisible Crisis” on December 6th highlighted the building problem of inadequate supplies of quality water in Latin America. The World Water Council’s Comision Nacional Del Agua reports that As much as one-third of the Latin America population lacks access to safe water. Unabated pollution and lack of water treatment have been identified as culprits. In South America, for example, 40% to 60% of water comes from aquifers that are subject to increasing pollution from untreated run-off from mining and agriculture operations.
Our survey of Latin America water sector in South America found an interesting mix of pollution abatement and water treatment...
Focus On Clean Power Income Trusts
Last week, Tom brought you a piece on the Algonquin Power Income Fund (AGQNF.PK), in which he opined that shift in investor attention away from capital gains toward yield might eventually provide a catalyst for the prices of yield-focused securities such as income trusts to rise. So-called utility trusts, or income trusts where the underlying corporation is engaged in utility activities such as power generation, are a common feature of the Canadian income trust sector (the mother of all income trust sectors). A sub-set of utility trusts is the clean power utility trust, where the power generation...
Internal Hydro International Inc. Announces Purchase Contract of $2,250,000 for 100 Energy Units and...
Internal Hydro International Inc. (IHDR) announces that the Company has entered into a purchase agreement with El Tigre Development Inc. (ETIG) for the purchase of 100 Energy Commander Units. The purchase price of the 100 units will be $2,250,000.00 for placement by ETIG in the United States and elsewhere. The agreement calls for IHDR and ETIG to share in revenue generated from each unit beyond the purchase price. The Energy Commander technology uses IHDR's patented low impact hydro technology utilizing water or gas flow from any source where pressure is present. The technology uses water or gas pressure...
Construction of Shihwa Lake Tidal Power Plant Begins Next Month
This November, the construction of the world’s largest tidal power plant will begin at Ansan City’s Shihwa Lake in Gyeonggi Province, and next year, the construction of an experimental current power plant will start in Haenam County at Uldol-mok. As an aside, this website has a great feature that allows you to listen to a text-to-speach version of this article in either a male or female voice.
Some Thoughts on Water, Electricity and Climate Change
Most forms of electricity generation use water. Thermal generation (coal, natural gas, nuclear, biomass, and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP)) evaporate water for cooling, although they can substitute air cooling, but only by sacrificing efficiency. Moving in the other direction, many dry coastal regions use desalinization to essentially convert electricity into clean drinking water. A plant was recently approved in Southern California, despite environmental concerns. Lack of water use is one of the less recognized advantages of wind and solar photovoltaic generation, but is a significant advantage in the arid West. Next week, I will be publishing an article which...
Newsweek Special Report
"Experts generally agree that our current reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. Already oil is near $50 per barrel, and the great millions of Chinese and Indians destined to take to the road in the next decades have not yet gotten behind the wheel." This week Newsweek has written several special reports about alternative energy in all its forms. All of these reports can be found at the following link.
Clearing Up Some Confusion Over Community Solar In New York
Community Solar in New York has a messaging problem. It is confusing, and even some industry professionals have given up in disgust because of aggressive marketing and a lack of clarity.
Fortunately, aggressive marketing is not universal among community solar developers.
Unfortunately, the lack of clarity is almost universal.
How Community Solar Works in New York
The system the New York utility regulator set up for community distributed generation (CDG, a term which includes community hydropower and community wind as well as community solar) is counter intuitive for most potential customers.
As shown in the diagram above, the electric utility pays for a project's...
Campaign for renewable energy begins
Colorado House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah. and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, co-chairs of Amendment 37—the Renewable Energy Initiative—kicked-off their statewide campaign Thursday with stops throughout Colorado. Amendment 37 would require 10 percent of Colorado's electricity be generated from renewable energy by 2015. The program is scaled beginning with a 3 percent requirement by 2007, 6 percent by 2011, and 10 percent by 2015.
Wave machine supplies power to national grid
British engineers have succeeded in supplying electricity generated from wave power to the national grid for the first time. A machine off the coast of Orkney has been generating electricity for a week. Its performance is being monitored by scientists at the European Marine Energy Centre. also more about this story at
Administration Lays the Groundwork for Hydropower Boom
Tom Konrad CFA The US Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the US Army Corps of Engineers are quietly laying the groundwork for a renewable energy boom that you might not expect. What they've done is announce a memorandum of understanding to work together to support environmentally sustainable hydropower. They're not talking about building new dams, which have questionable environmental benefit, but rather to remove barriers to developing cost-effective hydropower at existing dams and waterworks. Hydropower does not get much attention from investors. In large part, that's because of the lack...
Must Renewable Energy Be Diversified?
Dana Blankenhorn Most renewable energy companies specialize. Solar companies do solar. Wind companies do wind. Geothermal companies do geothermal. Biomass companies do biomass. But a small Canadian merger challenges that assumption. Magma Energy (MGMXF.PK), a geothermal company, said it will spend about $100 million in stock to buy Plutonic Power (PUOPF.PK), which has wind and hydropower projects, and ambitions to get into solar. The combined companies will go by the name Alterra Power. Both companies are based in Vancouver. Size really does matter, crowed Magma CEO Ross Beatty on a conference call announcing...
Hydropower project tested on Merrimack
Privately held Verdant Power is developing technology for a new type of hydropower that, unlike conventional hydropower, does not involve the use of dams. Instead, it seeks to capture ''kinetic energy" from the moving water found in tidal streams, rivers, and the ocean, and in human-made facilities such as aqueducts and irrigation canals. This project will be developed on a section of the Merrimack River in Massachusetts.
ENDESA Will Invest Euro 286 Million in New Wind Farms and Mini Hydro Plants...
ENDESA (ELE) has received authorisation to build and start up new wind farms and mini hydro plants this year, requiring an investment of Euro 286 million. The start-up of these projects, part of ENDESA's Strategic Plan, will add 277 MW to ENDESA's generation capacity, 252 MW in wind (for a Euro 250 million) and 25 MW in mini hydro capacity (for an investment of around Euro 60 million). Facilities already under construction and expected to come on stream in 2005 include the wind farms at Pena Ventosa and Chan do Tenon in Galicia, Las Hoyuelas in Castilla La...
BT gets behind renewable energy
British Telecom has announced a three-year plan to get all of its energy needs from renewable sources - the biggest such project in the world. The electricity used, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, could power a city the size of Nottingham. Renewable sources of energy include wind, wave and solar power, rather than using fossil fuels like oil or coal.
Buying Innergex – Texas Was Bad, But Not That Bad
By Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Last week, I published this call to buy Innergex (INGXF, INE.TO) because investors had been overreacting to the losses from the February cold snap in Texas. The stock is up since then, but still seems a decent value.
Canadian Yieldco Innergex Renewable Energy (INGXF, INE.TO) took a big financial hit from the power disruptions in Texas in March.
It's complex, but their financial hedges on power prices for three of its wind farms ended up creating enormous liabilities - more, in fact, than two of their wind farms are worth. Two of their facilities also had benefits...
