Renewable Energy REITs or MLPs Would Unlock Billions

Jennifer Runyon According to Richard Kauffman, Senior Advisor to the Secretary, DOE, making REITs or MLPs available for renewable energy project financing is the key to advancing the industry.   Top engineering, procurement and construction firms gathered to network, learn and do business with corporate-level project developers at the PGI Financial Forum, one of four co-located events that took place in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month. Richard Kauffman, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, gave the keynote address during a luncheon that took place during the conference. ...

Sunny Climate For Solar Income Up North

Tom Konrad CFA Disclosure: I am long PW and HASI. In a rational world, the sunniest places would have the warmest reception for solar technology and investment.  While solar is having its day in the sun in Hawaii, state incentives make the economics of photovolatics equally attractive in Vermont, a state not known for its sunny skies.  And while California is famous for its rapid deployment of solar, the economics are at least as good in Washington state, New York, New Hampshire, and chilly Maine. It’s not only the economics of solar which can counter-intuitively get better...

Trash Stocks Trashed: An Income Opportunity?

Tom Konrad CFA Dumpster diving for high yielding gems. An earlier version of this article was written at the end of July and published on my Forbes blog, before the August market implosion. I've updated it here to reflect the new stock prices and some recent company news. Renewable energy has many advantages over fossil energy.  One of the most important is that it's renewable.  As supplies of Oil and other fossil fuels are used up, they become harder and more expensive to extract, while renewable energy is generally getting cheaper over time,...

Income From Hydroelectric Power

by Debra Fiakas CFA Are you an investor hungry for current income?  Is there a green line of global warming fear running through your investment selections?  I have stock that fulfills both requirements.  Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners (BEP:  NYSE) is a renewable power producer with assets in Canada, the U.S. and Brazil.  Brookfield generates over 5,900 megawatts of power each year from plants running on river water, wind or natural gas.  Another 2,000 megawatts is apparently under development in Canada and Brazil. What Brookfield does best is hydroelectric production.  The company claims over 170...
Yieldcos stock chart 2H 2020

The Yieldco Virtuous Cycle

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Readers who followed my coverage of the Yieldco bubble in 2015 know the Yieldco Virtuous Cycle.   A Yieldco’s stock price rises It issues new shares, and invests the money in renewable energy projects.   Because the stock price is high, it is able to buy more project cash flow by issuing fewer shares than it has in the past. Cash flow available for distribution (CAFD) per share increases, despite the increasing number of shares outstanding. Yieldco management sets a target for continued rapid annual distribution growth, which can be met either by further share issuance (if...

Northland Power’s Solar-Backed Bond

New Canadian Climate bond: Northland Power releases a pretty big ABS - CA$232m (US$206m) - backed by solar projects with proceeds for renewables. 18-year tenor, 4.397% coupon, BBB. Securitisation key future area for green bonds.

Green Bonds From Terraform Global, SolarCity, and Hannon Armstrong

by the Climate Bonds Team Yieldco TerraForm Global (GLBL) issues a whopping $810m green bond (7 years, 9.75%, B2/B+) TerraForm Global Operating has issued an $810m green bond, with 7-year tenor, 9.75% coupon and ratings of B2 and B+ from Moodys and S&P respectively. TerraForm Global is a recent yieldco spin off (IPO last month) of SunEdison (SUNE) group (have a look here if the yieldco concept is new to you). Terraform Global owns and operates renewable energy assets - solar, wind and hydro - in emerging markets, in the following locations: Solar: China, India, South Africa,...

What Yieldco Managers Are Saying About The Market Meltdown

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA Note: This article was first published on GreenTechMedia on Noveber 27th. In the last six months, YieldCos have fallen from stock market darlings to pariahs.  YieldCos are companies that buy clean energy projects such as solar and wind farms, and use the majority of free cash flow from these projects to pay dividends to investors. Many are listed subsidiaries or carve-outs of large developers of clean energy projects. Last year, investors repeatedly punished leading solar developers and manufacturer First Solar and SunPower for their reluctance to launch YieldCos. When...
power production from wind and solar

List of High Yield Alternative Energy Stocks

This is a list of renewable and alternative energy stocks with dividend or distribution yields above 4%.  The list includes most Yieldcos (high distribution companies that own renewable energy operations), but is not limited to Yieldcos. Some Yieldcos may be excluded if their yield is below 4%. Atlantica Yield plc (AY) Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. (AQN, AQN.TO) Bluefield Solar Income Fund Ltd. (BSIF.L) Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P. (BEP) Clearway Energy, Inc. (CWEN,CWEN-A) Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (CIG) Covanta Holding Corporation (CVA) Crius Energy Trust (KWH-UN.TO, CRIUF) Enviva Partners, LP (EVA) Foresight Solar Fund plc (FSFL.L) GATX Corporation Series A (GMTA) Global X YieldCo ETF (YLCO) Greencoat UK Wind PLC (UKW.L) Green...

SolarCity’s Second Solar Lease-Backed Bond Closes Thursday

SolarCity is on the road with a $70.2m, 8yr, BBB+ rooftop solar leases securitization; closes Thursday Sean Kidney US company SolarCity (NASD:SCTY) has priced a solar bond backed by cash flows from a pool of 6,596 mainly residential solar panel systems and power purchase agreements in California, Arizona, and Colorado. Expected bond figure is $70.2 million, but the bond doesn’t close until Thursday this week. Interest rate is 4.59%. Credit Suisse is structurer and sole bookrunner. This is SolarCity’s second solar securitization in six months. Their previous (ground-breaking) bond was for $54.4 million with an...
Bernard Tan

Royalties: a Financial Innovation for Renewable Energy

The following interview with RE Royalties (RE.V, RROYF) CEO Bernard Tan was conducted in September by AltEnergyStocks.com Editor Tom Konrad.  Links and ticker symbols were not included in his original responses, but added by AltEnergyStocks.com as a resource for readers. Q: What exactly is a renewable energy royalty? A renewable energy royalty is a stream of cash flows generated by a renewable energy project. When the project generates electricity and sells its electricity, we receive a percentage of the revenues from the electricity sales, otherwise known as a gross revenue royalty. We receive that gross revenue royalty, on average, for about...
green swan

Green swan, Black swan: No matter as long as it reduces stranded spending

by Prashant Vaze, The Climate bonds Initiative In January, authors from several institutions under the aegis of BiS, published The Green Swan Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change setting out their take on the epistemological foundations for, and obstacles against, central banks acting to mitigate climate change risk. The book’s early chapters provide a cogent and up-to-date analysis of climate change’s profound and irreversible impacts on ecosystems and society. The authors are critical of overly simplistic solutions such as relying on just carbon taxes. They also recognize the all-too-evident deficits in global policy to respond to the threat. In short, they accept the need for central banks to act. The Two Arguments  The paper makes two powerful arguments setting out the challenges central banks face using their usual mode of working. Firstly, climate change’s impact on financial systems is an unknowable unknown – a...

Enviva: Wood Pellets Into Dividends

by Debra Fiakas CFA Last week Enviva Partners, LP (EVA:  NYSE) reported financial performance for its wood pellets business in its quarter ending September 2015.  Sales totaled a whopping $116.6 million, representing a 53% increase compared to $40.5 million in the same quarter last year.  The big jump in revenue resulted from higher volumes to larger customers.  Distributable cash flow totaled $12.6 million compared to $8.2 million in the year ago period.  Quarter performance made possible a declared cash distribution of $0.44 per common unit, which is 7% higher than the minimum quarterly distribution. At its...

10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2020: Updates on GPP, HASI, CVA

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Market Decline Last week I warned "The risks in today's stock market outweigh the possibility of future potential gains."  Looks like we're seeing those risks manifest in short order.  The last couple days' decline have me looking at a few stocks to start adding to my positions again, especially MiX Telematics (MIXT) discussed on June 2nd and Green Plain Partners (GPP), discussed below. Note that this pullback could easily be very early days of a much larger market decline.  We might even see the market fall far enough to test the March lows... any of my buying...

$37B 2014 Green Bond Issuance Triples Market

by Tess Olsen-Rong Following a landmark green bond growth year in 2013, the labelled green bond market has once again experienced a year of incredible growth in 2014: by year-end there had been $36.6bn of green bonds issued by 73 different issuers – that’s more than a tripling of the market! The final figure was boosted by a late flurry of green municipal bonds. This exponential growth takes the total amount of green bonds outstanding to $53.2bn by the end of 2014. So, what happened to cause this tripling of issuance? Well, corporate and municipal bond...

Comparing Community Solar Subscriptions And Yieldcos

By Tom Konrad, Ph.D. CFA Community solar is gaining traction in many states. The concept, also known as shared solar or solar gardens, originated in the mid-2000s as a way to allow broader participation in the ownership of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, while also encouraging local development. Community solar broadens access to solar beyond homeowners with suitable roofs. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory report from 2015 estimated that 49 percent of households cannot own solar because they do not own their own home, or they live in high-rise buildings with insufficient roof space.  Rooftop solar is impractical for many...
Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami