2010: The Year of the Strong Grid? Part II
The Strongest Strong Grid Stocks Tom Konrad, CFA A comparison of the financial strength of transmission (or "Strong Grid") companies. In Part I of this article I made the case that transmission stocks, or "Strong Grid" might be a clean energy sector that takes off in 2010, as Smart Grid stocks and Battery stocks did in 2009. If the sector does take off, the rising tide will probably float all boats, but if it doesn't, it will probably be better to be in the strongest such companies, because, as in 2009, the harsh financial climate will probably mean that...
Ten Solid Clean Energy Companies to Buy on the Cheap: #2 National Grid (NGG)
Like Quanta Services, (#8 in this series), National Grid PLC (NYSE:NGG) allows investors to participate in the massive build out of electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure necessitated by years of neglect and the growing need to decarbonize our electric infrastructure. See the article linked above for more detail on these two forces driving the sector. Having its origins in British electricity deregulation in the 1990s, Nation Grid is a regulated utility in Britain and the United States, and operates high pressure gas pipelines and high voltage transmission in Britain, and electricity transmission and natural gas distribution in the Northeastern...
Hopping Off The Short Enphase Bandwagon
by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Last week, I wrote that I'd taken a short position in Enphase Energy Inc. (ENPH). I have now closed out that position and don't intend to go short again.
My decision to go short was based on four factors:
I'm worried about risk in the overall market, and so am considering opportunistic short positions as a hedge.
Prescience Point Capital Management released a report accusing Enphase of earnings manipulation. The report seemed well-researched from a purely accounting point of view.
My favored indicator for avoiding companies which might be engaging in earnings manipulation, Beneish M-Score was...
Moving Microgrids Beyond R&D
by Joe McCabe Where is the money in microgrids? My goal at this years Intersolar event was to try and answer this question; to figure out the value proposition of microgrids as they relate to distributed generation, storage, renewable energy and photovoltaics. A microgrid is an electrical supply and use system that can operate autonomously. Although all microgrids are small relative to the electric grid as a whole, the huge size of the grid leaves a broad range of what can count as “micro.” Microgrids can be as small as a single building, but range on...
The Smart Grid in 2013: Three Green Money Managers Square Off on EnerNOC
Tom Konrad What will the New Year hold for Clean Energy? For the people who manage clean energy portfolios, mutual funds, and indexes the question is more than idle curiosity. Getting the answer right means finding the stocks which will put a shine on your solar portfolio’s returns. Getting it wrong means the competition will blow away your wind stocks. I asked my network of green money managers for their predictions. This is the second in a series on their predictions and stock picks from my panel. This first article focused on what they had to...
Bold or Bogus? Digi International’s Move toward Smart Grid Technology
Research Analyst Bucks NaysayersBy Joyce Pellino CraneJay M. Meier may be out on a lonely limb, but the senior research analyst at Feltl and Company is unwavering in his enthusiasm for Digi International, Inc. (Nasdaq:DGII)Meier is recommending Digi as a buy, insisting that the company is undervalued given its potential for growth in the smart grid sector.“The company is woefully undervalued,” he said, “and it’s probably going to start growing in the second half of 2010 as evidenced by all the smart grid technology it has...”But other research analysts are not so sure. I spoke with two who...
Transmission Stocks: Bringing Wind Power to Where it’s Needed
Last week, Charles told us to expect wind power industry suppliers to benefit from shortages in wind turbine components. Owens Corning (NYSE:OC) which I mentioned in my Blue Chip Alternative Energy Portfolio fits nicely into this category with their composites for turbine blades, as do the power converter stocks I mentioned two weeks ago. As essential to wind power as any of these is improved power transmission. The National Wind Coordinating Collaborative states, Electrical transmission facilities connecting windy areas and load centers are sometimes non-existent or minimal. Even in cases where a good wind resource has...
Clean Energy Stocks Shopping List: Five Electricity Transmission Stocks
We may be headed into a renewed market slump. If so, it will pay to wait before buying, but when the time does come to buy, here are 5 electric transmission stocks I have my eye on. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA On June 2, I wrote that I thought the market was near its peak. That day, the S&P 500 closed at 944.74. On June 12, it closed up 0.15% at 946.21, and has since trended down, currently trading down 5% as I write. I expect further declines this year, either with the market heading straight down from here,...
REDI-ing Your Portfolio for a Low-Carbon Economy
Tom Konrad, CFA Colorado's recently released Renewable Energy Development Infrastructure (REDI) report looks at what the resource-rich state needs to do to accomplish the state goal of reducing CO2 emissions 20% from 2005 levels by 2020. Investors who expect the developed world to attempt similar cuts in emissions should take note of the report's conclusions, and invest accordingly. Since Colorado Governor Bill Ritter recruited my friend Morey Wolfson for the Colorado Governor's Energy Office (GEO) he's had a lot less time to socialize with the rest of us in the clean energy community, but we caught up over lunch...
The Ontario Green Energy Act: What Can Alt Energy Legislations Do For Investors
Dedicated legislations have been at the core of some of the most impressive regional growth stories in alternative energy, most notably in Germany with the Renewable Energy Sources Act or in California with the various legislative solar initiatives. On Monday, the Canadian province of Ontario became the latest jurisdiction to join the fray as lawmakers introduced the Green Energy and Green Economy Act. Why should investors care? Because such legislations have been at the core of some of the most impressive regional growth stories in alternative energy. As a bit of a backgrounder on Ontario, there...
Is Composite Technology Corporation Still a Buy?
by Tom Konrad When I asked, Alternative Energy Stocks readers overwhelmingly wanted me to take another look at Composite Technology Corp. (OTC BB:CPTC.OB) I've discussed CPTC several times over the last year, and consider it my most speculative pick in electricity transmission and distribution. True to the nature of a speculative stock with no current earnings which is still trying to establish markets for its products, the stock price has been all over the map. The reader interest is doubtless due to the recent sharp decline since mid January. I personally sold a portion of...
MasTec (MTZ): Connectivity to the Smart Grid
By Harris Roen An important part of the smart grid will be devices that connect the user to the grid, or “reading points”. These reading points go way beyond the current meter reading system that just monitor the amount of energy used. The long held belief that meter reading was the only way to monitor household and business’s consumption is quickly being replaced with alternate ideas. MasTec (MTZ) is a contracting firm with $2.1 billion in annual sales focused on utility and communications infrastructure. It specializes in communications, high-speed Internet and electric distribution, as well as...
List of Wind and Solar Inverter Stocks
This article was last updated on 12/20/2022.
Inverter stocks are publicly traded companies that manufacture or are suppliers to companies whose products, called inverters, convert power from direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). Inverters are used to allow power from solar, wind, and batteries to feed the electric grid. They are also included in the list of electric grid stocks.
Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS)
Darfon Electronics Corporation (8163.TW)
Enphase Energy, Inc. (ENPH)
Hoymiles Power Electronics Inc. (688032.SS)
Schneider Electric (SU.PA, SBGSF, SBGSY)
SMA Solar Technology (S92.DE)
SolarEdge (SEDG)
If you know of any inverter stock that is not listed here and should be, please let us know by...
Comverge, Diverge, or Merge?
Tom Konrad CFA Comverge (COMV) has a great residential demand response business. The company lacks focus, but the stock has significant upside as an acquisition target. As part of my ongoing series on energy management companies (see these articles on World Energy Solutions (XWES) and EnerNOC (ENOC)) I spoke with Comverge CEO Blake Young. The Comverge Advantage Comverge is the strong leader in residential demand response (DR,) one of the most cost effective grid stability solutions. Even within demand response, residential DR is an excellent niche, because working in the market for residential DR...
A Profitable Smart Grid Penny Stock Aims for a NASDAQ Listing
Tom Konrad CFA A NASDAQ listing could bring a quick profit to investors who buy now, but beware the business risk. Ambient Corp. (ABTG.OB) offers an Internet Protocol (IP) smart grid communications platform to electric utilities. So far, they have exactly one customer: Duke Energy (DUK). Duke selected Ambient's X-series communication node solution, which flexibly gathers data from multiple smart meters and relays it to the utility. For instance, in some cases Duke is using Ambient's nodes to gather data from both Echelon Corporation's (ELON) smart meters using data over powerline technology, and Badger Meter's (BMI) smart...
Alternative Energy Storage: Enabling the Smart Grid
America’s electric power grid is subject to immense inefficiencies that arise from the interplay between centralized power generation, local power consumption and on demand utility service. To put things into a broad perspective, the nameplate capacity of U.S. generating facilities is about 1 million Megawatts (MW), so if all of our power plants ran 24/7 we would have a theoretical annual generating capacity of 8.7 billion Megawatt-hours (MWh). Since demand for electricity fluctuates on both a daily and seasonal basis, total electric power generation in 2007 was only 4.2 billion MWh, or less than 50% of nameplate...