Energy Storage

Tom Konrad CFA As a quick follow-up to my valuation of Maxwell Technologies (NASD:MXWL), it was not just CEO David Schramm who has been buying over the last couple of days.  An astute reader brought my attention to five more insider filings on EDGAR: Insider Position Date Shares bought Holdings Increase David Schramm CEO 4/30 5,000 217,564 2.4% Mark Rossi Director 4/30 20,000 84,664 30.9% Robert Guyett Director 4/30 11,000 (option exercise) 78,664 16.3% Yon Jordan Director 5/1 5,000 33,997 17.2% David Schramm CEO 5/3 2,000 219,564...

John Petersen For the last two years I've been paying increasingly close attention to trailblazing work by Norfolk Southern (NSC) in the field of battery-powered locomotives. My interest was piqued in June of 2010 when Norfolk Southern hired Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) to develop a battery management system that would allow rail locomotives to run on battery power and recharge their batteries through regenerative braking. I believed the decision was positive news for Axion because nobody hires a battery manufacturer to design a BMS for somebody else's product. My enthusiasm was tempered, however, by knowing that an earlier...

Tyler Hamilton Oil and gas pipeline giant Enbridge Inc.(ENB)  has invested $5 million in Mississauga, Ont.-based Hydrogenics (HYGS), a leading maker of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolysis systems for producing hydrogen gas from water. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this announcement. I know Enbridge has invested in fuel-cell technology before, and I know it has purchased hundreds of megawatts of solar capacity, operates wind farms and is dabbling in geopower. And yes, it has invested some money into Toronto-based Morgan Solar. What surprises me about...

John Petersen I’ve recently learned that lithium-ion batteries might be a triple threat – Borgia batteries – cherished by eco-royalty, poisonous in the extreme, and explosive enough to wreak havoc in a $25 million laboratory that was built to safely manage battery explosions. Is it a battery or a WMD? On April 11th five employees of the advanced battery laboratory at the General Motors (GM) Technical Center in Warren, Michigan were hurt when extreme testing of a prototype lithium-ion battery pack from A123 Systems (AONE) released chemical gases that exploded inside a testing chamber. Four were...

John Petersen Last month Ricardo PLC (RCDOF.PK) published a report titled "GB Rail Diesel Powertrain Efficiency Improvements" that it prepared for Great Britain's Department for Transport. While most of the fuel efficiency technologies Ricardo evaluated for the report were mechanical systems, its analysis of the fuel efficiency benefits of stop-start and hybrid systems for locomotives offered an intriguing view of a cost-effective vehicle electrification opportunity that can be implemented at relevant scale within a few years. The two types of locomotive systems Ricardo evaluated for the report were simple stop-start idle elimination and full hybridization. The following table...

John Petersen Last month Lux Research released a bottom-up evaluation of the cost effectiveness of eight energy storage technologies in six grid-scale applications throughout 44 countries, including all 50 U.S. states. Their report titled "Grid Storage under the Microscope: Using Local Knowledge to Forecast Global Demand" predicts that annual global demand for grid-scale energy storage will reach an astounding 185.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2017 and represent a $113.5 billion incremental revenue opportunity for an industry that currently generates sales of $50 to $60 billion a year. In the grid-scale sector alone, Lux predicts an average...

John Petersen The first quarter of 2012 was the best of times for shareholders of companies that are developing and manufacturing cheap energy storage products like lead-acid batteries, but the worst of times for shareholders of pure-play lithium-ion battery developers. The following table tracks stock price performance in the energy storage and electric vehicle sectors for the first quarter of 2012 and for the twelve months ended March 31st. Long-term readers will notice that the current list is a good deal shorter than it was in March of last year because of my decisions to...

John Petersen We all know that you can't have a cost-effective electric car without a cost-effective battery. We also know that a small but vocal hodgepodge of ideologues, activists, politicians and dreamers wants everyone to believe that rapid and stunning advances in lithium-ion batteries will finally make the dream a reality after a century of one abject failure after another. I frequently caution readers that it won't be anywhere near as easy as the proponents claim. In a new report titled "Searching for Innovations to Cut Li-ion Battery Costs" Lux Research did a yeoman's...

John Petersen Overview Mark Twain quipped, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Truer words were never spoken, particularly when it comes to the batteries that most of us use and curse on a daily basis. If you have a car, you have a lead-acid starter battery that needs to be replaced every couple years. Cellphones and laptops offer similar trials and tribulations unless you upgrade your electronics regularly. When our cars don't start or our electronics don't work, we invariably blame the...

John Petersen March is Motor Show time in Geneva and it was fascinating to witness the shift in emphasis away from plug-in vehicles as European automakers highlighted their accomplishments in fuel efficiency technologies like HEVs, micro-hybrids and dual fuel drivetrains that can switch back and forth between gasoline and compressed natural gas. While there were modest displays for Tesla (TSLA), Fisker and other emerging brick-makers, and space was set aside for the obligatory plug-ins that most real manufacturers are toying with, the substantial majority of front-line vehicles at display entrances and halo cars on turntables were HEVs...

John Petersen A couple days ago Lux Research published a new report titled “Every Last Drop: Micro‐ And Mild Hybrids Drive a Huge Market for Fuel‐Efficient Vehicles” that focuses on rapidly growing markets for micro-hybrid vehicles and their battery systems. During 2011, automakers sold an estimated 5,000,000 micro-hybrids worldwide, mainly in Europe. By 2017, Lux forecasts global micro-hybrid sales of 39,000,000 cars a year and a $6.3 billion annual market for their battery systems, which represents an across the board average of $161 per vehicle compared to an auto industry average of less than $60 per...

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...

John Petersen On Friday A123 Systems (AONE) announced a direct registered offering that's an elegant example of a well-structured financing transaction in a difficult market. A123 had a solid financial base before the offering and the stock was starting to turn a critical corner into an upward trend. The new financing should add momentum to that trend. The first stage deal terms are pretty straightforward. The investors will buy units consisting of one share of common stock and one common stock purchase warrant for $2.034 per unit, a 10% discount from the closing price of A123's common...

An Elephant Hunter's Theory About Axion Power's Price Surge John Petersen Over the last few days I've been inundated with questions from readers who want to know why Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) has smoothly surged from a low of $0.25 on December 30th to a closing price of $0.58 yesterday. The short answer is the stock is finally emerging from the mother of all supply and demand imbalances and the persistent sellers that punished the price over the last 20 months are almost out of the picture. Since I believe we're witnessing the beginning of an entirely...

John Petersen On December 16th I wrote "My favorites for a strong 2012 include AONE, MXWL, AXPW.OB, ZBB, JCI, ENS, ACPW and XIDE. They all merit serious attention from investors who want exposure to the energy storage sector." Since then four of my favorites have bottomed and turned sharply higher while the Pride of Palo Alto endures a short circuit. The following table compares today's closing prices with the December 16th closing prices for those five companies. Exide Technologies (XIDE) has been a roller coaster over the last two years. In January 2010 its 10-day...

John Petersen 2011 has definitely been one for the record books; a dreadfully wonderful year for the energy storage sector that reminds me of the opening paragraph from A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before...