Democratizing the Grid
by Daryl Roberts
In a previous article I investigated the question of whether private sector capital was being stimulated sufficiently enough to build out renewable infrastructure on pace to reach climate goals. I found that on the upper end, giant institutional funds were only mobilizing a tiny fraction of their total Assets Under Management, due to regulatory constraints and uncompetitive yields. On the lower end, smaller scale funding seemed to be growing, with facilitation from intermediaries, fintech aggregation services, and increased access at lower levels to complicated derisking strategies.
But I now find reporting that capital is over-mobilized, that solar may...
Keynes Meets Carson, And How You Can Invest It (Part 2)
Two weeks ago, I brought you the first of a series of two articles on how you can play the clean infrastructure build-out that could come as a result of an Obama victory today. In that article, I made the point that the political and economic ideology that had prevailed in America over the past 30 years, economic laisser-faire, had been severely undermined by the recent credit meltdown and what now looks like it will be the worse economic shock in a generation or more. I further argued that the increasing sidelining of the "small government" discourse in...
Ten Solid Clean Energy Companies to Buy on the Cheap: #8 Quanta Services, Inc....
It may be a stretch to call a company with a P/E ratio in the high 30s "cheap," but in the case of Quanta Services (NYSE:PWR), it's a bargain. I won't repeat myself about why electric transmission and distribution (T&D) investments are a good bet. Put simply, the grid has been long neglected, and improved long distance transmission is essential to bringing large scale renewables such as solar and wind onto the grid. How does Quanta fit in? They build transmission line for utilities. When I ask industry insiders what company is best placed to actually string the wires...
Understanding Manufacturing Economics for Grid-Scale Energy Storage
John Petersen I have a new favorite word AGGREGATION! At the risk of sounding like a reporter, I’m going to summarize a pre-holiday news story you might have missed but need to know about. In late November the PJM Interconnect, the largest of nine regional grid system operators in the US, announced that it had begun buying frequency regulation services from small-scale, behind the meter, demand response assets in Pennsylvania. The first resources brought on-line by PJM were variable speed pumps at a water treatment plant and a 500 kW industrial battery array...
Are Solar PV and Wind Incompatible with Nuclear and IGCC?
Paul Denholm, a Senior Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), sees an upcoming struggle between renewable sources of electricity such as photovoltaics (PV) and wind with low-carbon baseload alternatives for space on the low carbon grid of the future. These baseload alternatives are nuclear and Internal Gasification Combined Cycle coal plants with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (IGCC w/ CCS, refereed to by advocates as "Clean Coal). This may come as a shock to advocates of the idea that Global Warming is such a big problem that we will need all forms of low carbon electricity, because the...
Clean Energy Stocks to Fill the Nuclear Gap
Tom Konrad, CFA If the Japanese use less nuclear power, what will take its place? I'm astounded by the resilience and discipline of the Japanese people in response to the three-pronged earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, perhaps in large part by my cultural roots in the egocentric United States, where we seem to have forgotten the virtue of self-sacrifice for the greater good. Yet while Japanese society has shown itself to be particularly resilient, the Japanese electric grid is much less resilient. According to International Energy Agency statistics, Japan produced 258 TWh of electricity from...
The Electric Grid Index
Charles Morand A little while ago, we received the following request from a reader: " when are you going to start an ETF or mutual fund called "Energy TS&E". T for transmission, S for storage, and E for efficiency. I guess you need an index first. I'm thinking Quanta, Amer Superconductor, Exide, Axion, Itron, Echelon, etc. There is no good one stop shop for this subsector. Sign me up." While we don't plan on launching a licensable index or a mutual fund because of all the regulatory thicket we'd...
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...
PowerSecure on a Solar Roll
by Debra Fiakas CFA Last week PowerSecure International (POWR: Nasdaq) announced the award of orders valued at $100 million for new solar projects. About 15% of the work will be completed in the final quarter of this year and the rest of the revenue will be recorded in 2016. The announcement sent investors into a tizzy. PowerSecure reported $283.4 million in total sales for the twelve months ending March 2015, primarily for solar power infrastructure and smart grid technology destined for electric utilities and microgrids. Securing orders equivalent to 35% of its current revenue run rate...
How to Invest in the Pickens Plan
A friend recently asked me how to invest in the Pickens Plan. I named a stock (see below). He then surprised me by saying "You are the fifth person I've asked, and no one else knew how. Several said it could not be done." You can invest in T. Boone Pickens's plan. Here's how: The Plan T. Boone's plan is both simple and audacious. We will build wind farms all over the Great Plains. Build the necessary transmission to get that electricity to cities, displacing natural gas used in electricity generation for the use in automobiles. This will...
Will Surging Smart Grid Investments Result in Surging Electric Prices?
John Petersen The electric power system in the U.S. is dirty, antiquated, stupid, unstable, and a security nightmare. After years of discussion and debate, consensus now holds that the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure will need hundreds of billions in new investment to reduce emissions, improve reliability, minimize waste and inefficiency, improve security, and facilitate the integration of wind, solar and other emerging alternative energy technologies. Commonly cited capital spending estimates range from $200 billion globally by 2015 to $2 trillion overall. In his November 2008 report, "The Sixth Industrial Revolution: The Coming of Cleantech," Merrill Lynch strategist...
ABB Group – A Cleantech Company?
Tom Konrad CFA Power and automation giant ABB, Ltd. (NYSE:ABB) was named Cleantech Corporation of the Year at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. The company has been focused on acquiring start ups in the cleantech space for the last couple of years, with two significant ones in 2010: Ventyx, a provider of IT systems to utilities, and Baldor Electric, the premier supplier of high-efficiency motors in the US. I very much like ABB's approach to cleantech. I'd even written about Baldor as a good way to invest in energy efficiency earlier in 2010 just a couple months before...
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...
How Energy Deregulation Affects States and Stocks
by Elaine Thompson
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in an executive summary of its New Energy Outlook 2017 report, predicts renewable energy sources will represent almost three-quarters of the $10.2 trillion the world will invest in new power-generating technology.
Analysts outline several reasons for this increase in spending, such as the decreasing costs of wind and solar and consumers’ increasing interest in solar panels. Competition between power sources also continues to grow, with products like utility-scale batteries upsetting coal and natural gas’s roles in the marketplace.
But more importantly, state-driven renewable portfolio standards pave the way for additional ventures in renewable energy technologies, particularly...
List of Smart Grid Stocks
Smart grid stocks are publicly traded companies that use or enable information technology to operate the electric grid more efficiently. They are also included in the list of electric grid stocks.
This list was last updated on 3/21/2022.
Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS)
AMSC (AMSC)
Arrow Electronics (ARW)
Digi International (DGII)
Echelon Corporation (ELON)
EnSync, Inc. (ESNC)
ESCO Technologies, Inc. (ESE)
Fluence Energy, Inc. (FLNC)
Itron (ITRI)
Kontrol Energy (KNR.CN, KNRLF)
Landis+Gyr Group AG (LAND.SW)
Schneider Electric (SU.PA, SBGSF, SBGSY)
SMA Solar Technology (S92.DE)
SolarEdge (SEDG)
Superconducting Technologies, Inc. (SCON)
Wallbox N.V. (WBX)
If you know of any smart grid stock that is not listed here and should be, please let us know by leaving a comment. Also...
Strong Grid Stocks Getting Stronger
Will 2012 Finally be the Year of the Strong Grid? Tom Konrad CFA Utility infrastructure companies are seeing the beginnings of the long-anticipated infrastructure boom, and have the rising revenues and backlog to prove it. Investing in electric utility infrastructure has long been one of my favored ways to invest in the growing renewable energy sector without having to take a bet on unproven technology. The North American grid is in badly in need of an upgrade, and increasing penetration of variable and distributed resources such as solar and wind will require further upgrades in order to...
