Can’t Put Solar On Your House? Four Ways To Invest In Solar Leases
Tom Konrad CFA Disclosure: I and my clients have long positions in HASI. I have sold NYLD $40 and $45 calls short. The secret sauce for bringing residential solar into the mainstream is the solar lease. With the simple value proposition of little or no money down and cost savings from day one, a homeowner does not have to be an environmentalist or green to be interested in the green of a solar lease. He or she simply needs to live in a state where the combination of annual sunshine and state incentives provide the economics to make solar...
Company Failures Are Not Industry Failures
Dana Blankenhorn Nearly all the big computer companies of the early 1970s have since gone out of business. Remember the BUNCH? Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, Honeywell (HON)? The first two became Unisys, the last three are still around, but none is a real factor in the computer industry as it exists today. Betting on the BUNCH in 1971 would not leave you in the chips in 2011. Digital Equipment, Data General, Wang, Amdahl? All gone. Along with nearly every company that made PCs in the 1970s save one – Apple. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) didn't get into the...
Chinese Solar Companies Undermining EU Deal
Doug Young Bottom line: A deal designed to avoid punitive tariffs on Chinese solar panels exported to Europe is rapidly collapsing, with new anti-dumping tariffs likely to be imposed by the end of the year. A looming clampdown on Chinese solar panels in Europe is rapidly accelerating, with word that the EU will review part of a landmark 2013 agreement that initially helped to prevent a trade war but is showing rapid signs of unraveling. The case centers on the prices of Chinese solar panels, which are typically much lower than their western counterparts due to a wide array...
Solar Bits: LDK Woes, Hanwha Loan
Doug Young A couple of news bits from the solar sector are showing at once how companies continue to struggle with fallout from the ongoing downturn even as some larger players continue to receive lifelines from Beijing. In the former category, floundering giant LDK (NYSE: LDK) has just announced an arbitration panel's ruling that it must pay hundreds of millions of yuan for equipment that it ordered at the height of the solar boom but which it no longer wants or needs. Meantime in the latter category, mid-sized player Hanwha SolarOne (Nasdaq: HSOL) has just received a major...
Canadian Solar’s Chinese Loan
Doug Young China’s struggling solar panel makers must are slowly transforming into de facto state-owned enterprises as they take increasing loans from Beijing, with Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) becoming the latest to take a handout from the policy lender China Development Bank (CDB). If Beijing is trying to convince Europe and the US that it’s not unfairly supporting its solar sector, then this certainly isn’t the way to do it. But that said, I doubt that Canadian Solar or many of its peers could get financing to maintain their operations from any true private sector banks right now,...
LDK Posts Steep Loss Amid Mounting Industry Pressure
Steve Leone Margin squeeze photo via Bigstock China's LDK Solar(LDK), a producer of polysilicon, wafers, cells and modules, has reported a steep quarterly loss that underscores the dramatic industry-wide shift that has occurred in the past year. In a weaker-than-expected fiscal first quarter statement posted Tuesday, LDK reported a net loss of $185.2 million, or a loss of $1.46 per diluted American depository share (ADS). During the same period a year ago, the company posted a net income of $135.4 million, or a $0.95...
Melting LDK Solar Looks for a Buyer
Doug Young There are quite a few developments on the solar energy front today, led by the release of new financial results from LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK), the weakest of China's major solar panel makers, that show a company in the midst of a meltdown. Meantime, Beijing has officially protested a US law that allows Washington to levy punitive tariffs against overseas industries that receive unfair state support, such as China's solar sector. Both the US and Europe believe China supports its solar sector with unfair subsidies and have taken various punitive actions; and now India is also...
Solar’s Good News: Cut-Backs
by Clean Energy Intel This year’s period of intense over-supply in the solar sector has continued to pressure solar players, leading to a recent batch of announcements of cut-backs and cost reductions. All of this may simply seem to be a continuation of the recent slew of bad news that has plagued the industry in the past few months. However, in the end, it is likely to be seen as at least one of the antidotes to the sector's troubles. Source: SolarBuzz, by permission. The chart above from ...
Community Solar Providers In National Grid Territory
See the Buyer's Guide to New York Community Solar for details on how New York community solar works and lists for other utility territories.
VENDOR NAME
PRICING STRUCTURE
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
SPECIAL OFFERS
Abundant Solar Power
10% discount subscription model
Contract to be signed
Amp Energy
Mostly 10% subscription model
12-month contract with auto-renew option, termination fees waived with proper notice
Astral Power
10% discount subscription model (Broker for solar farms)
No cancellation fee. Bill needed in customer’s name
$100 check and $100 donation to Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY
Ampion
10% discount subscription model
Free cancellation at any time, excess credit is banked
BlueWave Solar
10% discount subscription model (Broker for solar farms)
Links to own development as...
The Cost Of ‘Free Solar’
by Paula Mints Economic theory holds that when a good is provided it must be paid for and that the value for that good will be set by a dance between the sellers and buyers in a market. It is assumed that when the price is too high buyers will back away and the price will adjust. When the price is too low sellers will fail to make sufficient margin to continue producing the good and the price will adjust. And finally, when the price is just right, equilibrium will be achieved and buyers and sellers will be...
Magnetek Aurora(TM) Inverters Complete Manhattan’s Largest Building Integrated Solar Power System
Magnetek Inc. (MAG) announced that Manhattan's largest functioning Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) power system recently began harvesting energy from the sun.
SunTech’s Sunset Illuminates State Ties
Doug Young Sunset for Suntech. Photo by Tom Konrad As the sun rapidly sets on former solar pioneer Suntech (OTC: STPFQ), I thought I’d take a look at the latest reports that show just how closely the company relied on state support. At the same time, another major development has seen Suntech’s shares finally de-list from New York, where they have traded since its 2005 IPO. The de-listing is something that should have happened long ago, even though investors continued to bet that Beijing would rescue Suntech ever since...
The Alternative Energy Fallacy
John Petersen In 2009, the world produced some 13.2 billion metric tons of hydrocarbons, or about 4,200 pounds for every man, woman and child on the planet. Burning those hydrocarbons poured roughly 31.3 billion metric tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. The basic premise of alternative energy is that widespread deployments of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles will slash hydrocarbon consumption, reduce CO2 emissions and give us a cleaner, greener and healthier planet. That premise, however, is fatally flawed because our planet cannot produce enough non-ferrous industrial metals to make a meaningful difference and the prices...
The Ghost of Solyndra Haunts Chinese Solar Stocks
Doug Young The solar sector’s slow recovery is receiving some new setbacks in the form of lawsuits by 2 bankrupt US companies against Yingli (NYSE: YGE), Trina (NYSE: TSL) and Suntech (NYSE: STP), the last of which is also in bankruptcy reorganization. Adding to the mess, Suntech has just disclosed that more of its European assets have been seized by the Italian courts, throwing yet another new complication into its ongoing reorganization. This growing tide of litigation is somewhat expected, as investors try to recover whatever money they can following the sector’s spectacular crash over the last two...
SolarCity: Fanning the Flames
by Debra Fiakas CFA Solar power installer Solar City (SCTY: Nasdaq) has attracted a swarm of shareholder lawsuits in recent weeks. The stock is trading at a price level 44% below its 52-week high of $88.35 set in February 2014. That has to be disheartening for those who were on the wrong side of the trades at those lofty levels. In February when traders were bidding $88 and change for SCTY, the stock was trading at about 50 times revenue and 47 times cash flow from operations. Of course, since the company had yet to produce...
SunEdison Adds Batteries to Its Arsenal with Acquisition of Solar Grid Storage
Meg Cichon The renewable energy market has been slowly strengthening ties with energy storage, and it now seems to be tying a secure knot. Wind and solar developer SunEdison (SUNE) announced today that it bought the energy storage team, projects and 100-MW pipeline of Pennsylvania-based Solar Grid Storage (SGS). SunEdison is now able to offer integrated battery storage solutions for its renewable energy project portfolio, and delve into an energy storage market that is set to grow 250 percent in 2015, according to a new report from the Energy Storage Association and GTM Research. The solar plus battery...
