Our Smart Grid Stock List
Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I've been writing about the smart grid and its potential since before I joined AltEnergyStocks, in 2007, although at the time, I wasn't using the term: I mostly called it "Smart Metering." Now, Smart Grid is a central part of federal stimulus plans, and the term is firmly ensconced in the popular lexicon. GE even created a Super Bowl ad around the Smart Grid (video). It was far past time to create a Smart Grid category in our Alternative Energy Stock List, but now we've done it. The companies in the Smart Grid Stock List...
AMSC’s “Secret Sauce” Starts to Simmer
Market Heats Up for Disruption-Resistant SuperconductorsBy Joyce Pellino CraneWhen electrical transmission cables and tree branches glisten in brilliant sunlight, drop your camera and run to the nearest hardware store for a generator. I learned this hard lesson in December after an ice storm left downed wires, branches and debris throughout several counties northwest of Boston and across six other northeastern states, leaving one million without electricity, some for as long as two weeks. It will be a long time before I forget what it’s like to wrap holiday presents by a smoky fire with gloves on. American Superconductor’s (AMSC:...
EnerNOC Broadens Scope in Smart Grid Sector
Demand Responder Eyes New Growth Areas as Key Market Prices Dip by Joyce Pellino CraneEnerNOC, Inc., announced its acquisition of Cogent Energy, Inc., on December 9, signaling a strategic move into the energy efficiency sector that is designed to help it capitalize on the Smart Grid’s growth potential.But the company was launched in 2004 as one solution to the country’s burgeoning demand for energy, and has grown into a leader among a handful of competitors in the demand response market. Boston-based EnerNOC (Nasdaq: ENOC) helps businesses and grid operators reduce electricity consumption when demand is peaking and capacity strained. The...
Is the New Smart Grid ETF GRID All That Smart?
Tom Konrad, CFA First Trust Launched a Grid Infrastructure Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on November 17th. Although the First Trust Nasdaq Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure Index Fund (Nasdaq: GRID) is labeled a "Smart Grid" ETF to capture popular excitement around smart grid technology, it covers the whole grid infrastructure sector. This broader focus is good for clean energy investors. I've been an advocate of investing in electric transmission and smart gird stocks since early 2007, and for almost a year now, a regular reader has been telling me to create a transmission ETF so he can buy...
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...
Demand Planning: The Future of Demand Side Management
Electric utilities have a process by which they project future expected demand for electricity, and then find resources, either new electric generation or energy efficiency (Demand Side Management, or DSM) resources to meet that expected demand, or reduce that demand. Progressive utilities and utility regulators now include DSM among the mix of resources as a matter of course. According to Martin Kushler, of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) who spoke at the Southwest Regional Energy Efficiency Workshop about an upcoming report from ACEEE, DSM resources cost an average of 3 cents per kWh of energy...
Grid-scale Energy Storage: Lux Predicts $113.5 Billion in Global Demand by 2017
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...
Welcome To The New World
Perhaps ironically, it took one of the worst financial and economic crises of the past three decades to bring "the grid" into investor focus. To be sure, certain alt energy aficionados such as Tom have been on this topic for a long time (Tom is actually the one who introduced me to the grid as an investment theme). However, it is fair to say that most investors, including alt energy investors, have not historically paid the grid a huge deal of attention. That is because most people outside of alt energy and VC circles held, until recently, the Old...
If I Could Own Only One Alternative Energy Stock, It Would Be . ....
Bill Paul My friend Consuelo Mack, host of "Consuelo Mack's Wealthtrack" on PBS TV, asks her guests for their "one investment pick." What's my one alternative energy stock pick? A year ago on Consuelo's show, I recommended LED lighting developer Cree Inc. (Symbol CREE), because the LED lighting market (part of the burgeoning energy efficiency sector) is expected to hit upwards of $5 billion by 2013 v. $600 million in 2008, according to investment banking firm Merriman, Curhan, Ford, and because Cree was then an attractive takeover candidate. It still is; however, since the stock has since risen something...
Introducing PERGY
Impressed by the number of stocks in the Crystal Equity Research alternative energy indices that have delivered exceptional price appreciation, the last few posts have been on a quest to find fundamental characteristics that could give an advance signal of a future star. The post “Alternative Returns” on May 8th introduced the series identified future growth as a precursor of strong stock performance. The next post “Quest for Growth” on May 11th looked at stocks with above average growth predictions. Then the post “Alternative Bargains” looked at stocks in the alternative energy indices that are trading at below average price-earnings multiples.
There is a...
Clean Energy Stocks Shopping List: Smart Grid and Strong Grid
My five favorite stocks with technology to improve grid reliability. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Although the market has risen above where it was in early June, when I said "We're near the top," I'm still bearish. And I'm still making lists of stocks to buy when prices seem more favorable. Previous articles in this Clean Energy Stocks Shopping List series are listed at the end of this one. The Strong Grid I recently wrote about our list of Smart Grid Stocks, and at least two readers were prompted to ask why wasn't (1) Beacon Power (BCON) on the...
Net Metering Is the Solar Industry’s Junk Food
Shoppers who bring reusable bags to the grocery store buy more junk food. This example is part of a growing body of behavioral psychology research showing that when we feel good about ourselves for doing one thing right, we give ourselves permission to be careless in other areas. The solar installation industry seems to be falling into the "reusable shopping bag" trap. Solar itself is the reusable shopping bag. The junk food is net metering. Net metering is a simple, intuitive way to pay for solar generation at retail rates. But it puts solar companies on...
2010: The Year of the Strong Grid? Part IV: General Cable
Tom Konrad, CFA General Cable (BGC) is a strong grid stock that's suddenly looking a lot cheaper. Time to buy? General Cable is not only one of my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2010, it was also holding it's own in my list of "strong grid" (that is, electricity transmission) stocks that have strong financials. About 59% of the company's revenues come from what I would consider "strong grid" markets: their "electrical utility" and "electrical transmission" segments. I published the most recent version of that list on February 11. In both these articles I cautioned that I...
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...
Understanding the Smart Grid
By Harris Roen The modernization of the electric grid is an exciting investment opportunity that promises to be one of the biggest energy investment stories of the early 21st century. Smart Grid systems will provide large growth opportunities for many companies around the globe. This is being accomplished through a combination of updating existing technologies along with the creation of new systems aimed at improving the quality of the electric grid. By understanding how the dream of a smart grid will become a reality, an informed investor will be in a very good position to...
The Best Peak Oil Investments Meet the Strong Grid: CVTech Group
Tom Konrad CFA CVTech Group (CVT.TO, CVTPF.PK) operates in two of my favorite clean energy sectors: electricity transmission and distribution and efficient vehicles. Here is a look at the company's fundamentals. In "The Strongest Strong Grid Stocks" of my 2010: The Year of the Strong Grid? series, I took a quick look at CVTech Group's financial ratios, and decided not to look deeper because they had considerably more debt in comparison to income than the other electricity transmission ("strong grid") stocks I covered in that article. I came across CVTech again while looking at companies involved in...
