Investing in German Wind Power
By Jeff Siegel When it comes to understanding the EU, I'm not the brightest star in the sky. And to be honest, after stumbling down a rabbit hole of proposals, directorates, and laws on the European Commission's website, I was even worse shape than before I started. The European Commission is the EU's executive body that represents the interests of the EU as a whole. And just yesterday it made a decision that will result in a huge boost for wind energy in Germany. Germany's 7 Gigawatts are Coming So as many in the renewable energy game know, following...
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...
Xcel Energy Seeks Fast Track for Wind Power Bids
In order to take full advantage of the recent Congressional extension of the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind generation, Xcel Energy yesterday filed a request with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to further expedite a company bidding process for new wind power in the state. On Aug. 11, 2004, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission gave Xcel Energy (XEL) permission to issue a "Request of Proposal" for up to 500 megawatts of renewable energy expected to primarily be wind under the company's overall resource planning process. The bidding process for this wind power began the...
New Wind ETF FAN Cools Off Sunburned Portfolios
Update:You can find a comparison of FAN with PWND. a more recent wind ETF here. Since I last covered clean energy mutual funds and ETFs, the sector has seen the launch of two solar ETFs (KWT the Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF from VanEck, and TAN, the Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy ETF.) Continuing in the tradition of cute ticker symbols, First Trust's new global wind energy ETF is FAN. I recommend that investors stay away from the (very expensive) green energy mutual funds, and invest either in one of the ETFs, or if they have...
Grid-Based Energy Storage; Notes, Questions and Heresies from Storage Week
John Petersen Last week I had the pleasure of participating as a panelist in Infocast’s Storage Week and attending four days of presentations by industry executives, national thought leaders and policymakers. While most of the presentations were too detailed and specific for a blog about energy storage stocks, there were a few high-level discussions that may be interesting to readers and while I'll never qualify as a journalist I can at least share some of the thoughts I jotted down. Storage for Integration of Renewables Two of the most important presentations came from Dr....
Zoltek Rebuffs Offers, But Quinn Isn’t Going Away
Tom Konrad On March fifth, St. Louis, MO based carbon fiber manufacturer Zolek’s (NASD:ZOLT) shares jumped 14% to $10.52, having traded as high as $11.70 intraday when Quinpario Partners LLC and allied investors disclosed a 10.13% stake in the company. Jeffry Quinn wants to help Zoltek penetrate new markets and increase its global presence. Quinpario is an investment firm focused on the specialty chemicals and performance materials sectors, and also based in St. Louis. The firm was founded in 2012 by Jeffry N. Quinn and several senior executives from Solutia Inc,...
Big Firms Positioned in Alternative Energy Field
TheStreet.com has a good write up about the new potential growth opportunities that are available in the Alternative Energy marketplace. "With oil recently passing the $50 mark and expected to stay high some investors feel freshly tempted by alternative energy stocks. They view fuel cells and sunshine and windmills as ultimate replacements for diminishing supplies of fossil fuels. Thus, they tend to look past the alternative fuel industry's current losses and focus on future possibilities instead." The following companies are mentioned in this article: Ballard Power (BLDP) FPL Group Inc (FPL) Fuelcell Energy...
Broadwind: Optimism In The Wind
by Debra Fiakas CFA In early October 2013, Broadwind (BWEN: Nasdaq) announced over $100 million in new wind tower orders, tipping the value of orders received in the year 2013 over the $300 million mark. Wind energy has been a fickle market to pursue, alternatively showing great promise as policy makers show support for renewable energy sources and then sinking as cheap natural gas substitutes flood the market. Broadwind’s expertise is in gearing of various kinds. In addition to supplying gearboxes for wind turbines, the company offers maintenance services to tower owners. Oil in gearboxes...
Trading Alert: EarthFirst Canada (ERFTF.PK or EF.TO)
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on the upcoming Clean Power Call in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). In a nutshell, the Clean Power Call consists of an auction conducted by the government-owned integrated power company to award long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) to private wind developers. This is the model that has dominated in Canadian wind power so far. The notable thing about this model is that the PPA facilitates access to financing significantly for successful bidders, since the counterparty is a proxy of a credit-worthy government. EarthFirst Canada (EF) (ERFTF.PK or EF.TO)...
Broadwind: Major Order, But Still Looking For The Right Size
by Debra Fiakas CFA Last month wind tower manufacturer Broadwind Energy (BWEN: Nasdaq) announced a major new tower order from a major U.S. wind turbine manufacturer. The customer was not named, but the likely suspects are not hard to round up. General Electric (GE: NYSE) is the largest U.S.-based wind turbine producer with about 9.1% of the total world market according to BTM Navigant, an industry research firm. While substantially smaller in size, Northern Power Systems, PacWind and Xzeres are also important competitors in the wind energy industry. Clearly General Electric as a customer has the greatest financial...
List of Wind Power Manufacturing Stocks
Wind power manufacturing stocks are publicly traded companies whose business is involved in the development or manufacture of wind power equipment.
AB SKF (SKF-B.ST, SKFRY)
Broadwind Energy (BWEN)
China High Speed Transmission Equipment Group Co., Ltd. (0658.HK, CHSTF)
General Electric (GE)
Helix Wind, Corp. (HLXW)
Inox Wind Limited (INOXWIND.BO)
Nordex AG (NRDXF, NDX1.DE)
Sauer Energy, Inc. (SENY)
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (GCTAF, SGRE.MC)
Sif Holding NV (SIFG.AS)
Suzlon Energy Limited (SUZLON.BO)
Toray Industries, Inc (TRYIF, 3402.T)
TPI Composites, Inc. (TPIC)
Trinity Industries (TRN)
Vestas (VWS.CO, VWSYF, VWDRY)
Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd. (2208.HK)
If you know of any wind power manufacturing stock that is not listed here, but which should be, please let us...
Rapidly Growing Alternative Energy Companies
The last post highlighted several companies in the alternative energy, conservation and environment technology fields that have delivered exceptional price performance over the last year. Prospects for growth in sales or earnings appeared to be key drivers of the price movement. It makes sense to seek indicators of growth as cues for those companies that may become tomorrow’s price movers.
Crystal Equity Research’s novel alternative energy indices were a good place to go on a ‘quest for growth.’
Beach Boys Index - Biodiesel
The two analysts who publish estimates for Renewable Energy Group (REGI: Nasdaq)apparently expect a surge in growth in the current year followed by a leveling...
Hither and Yon: Transmission and Biofuels
In the most recent two installments of Energy Tech Stocks' interview with me cover my views on transmission stocks, and biofuel stocks. Readers of AltEnergyStocks know that I am a big fan of electricity transmission, a theme I keep coming back to. You also know that I have a very ambivalent relationship with both ethanol and biodiesel. So I liked Bill's transmission article, but I just wasn't able to convey to him the subtleties of how I feel about biofuels. But he got one thing right: the owners of biofuel feedstock are likely going to be the biggest winners....
Offshore Wind Blows Into The US: Seven Stocks To Catch The Breeze
Tom Konrad CFA The Growth of Offshore Wind Offshore wind has finally gotten a toe hold in the United States. The United States' first offshore wind farm, the 30 megawatt (MW) Block Island Wind Farm, is under construction. A new project, the South Fork Wind Farm will be three times the size of Block Island (90 MW), is set to be approved by the Long Island Power Authority. This project will be located 30 miles East of Montauk, NY and Southeast of Block Island in a wind energy area designated by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy...
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...
Wind Investors Beware!
Charles Morand I received a press release yesterday about a new Emerging Energy Research (EER) study on wind power installations in the US for 2009 and beyond. EER argues that US installations could be down as much as 24% in 2009 from a record 8.55 GW in 2008. While utility-led projects remain mostly on track, smaller IPPs and developers that rely on project finance or other forms of external financing are finding the current market environment challenging. However, record growth could return as early as 2010 with 9 GW...
