Wind

FPL Group Inc (FPL) announced it will build, own and operate a new wind farm in Texas, the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, to be located in Taylor County, Texas. The 220.5-megawatt Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center will be comprised of 147 1.5-megawatt wind turbines spread over a 22,500 acre site approximately 15 miles southwest of Abilene. Initial site work on the project is underway with full-scale construction expected to begin in the next few weeks and be completed no later than December 2005.

Vestas' (VWDRY.PK) Board of Directors intend to grant management share options at a strike price one-third BELOW book value. The Board of Directors is rewarding management for its mismanagement and past profit warnings. This will not help restore investor confidence. Given Vestas' valuation, it is time for shareholders to stand up for their interests: Investors should vote against all nominees for Vestas Board of Directors at the AGM on March 29th. The strike price of Vestas' share option scheme is only the latest in a series of decisions disregarding shareholder interests. Vestas needs to change! Vestas needs a...

By Tim Conneally The pool of public solar yieldcos keeps growing. Just before the Christmas holiday, Sol-Wind Renewable Power LP filed for a $100 million initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This will be the eighth Yieldco to debut since 2013, and the stock will trade on the NYSE under the symbol SLWD. But there's something different about this one. Sol-Wind is a yieldco that utilizes a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) structure, so it will be taxed differently from the other Yieldcos. Generally speaking, a Yieldco is similar to MLPs by nature, but the taxation...

Spanish Energy producer ENDESA (ELE) will have 75.9 MW of additional wind power in Galicia, now that its subsidiary, ECYR, (ENDESA Cogeneracion y Renovables) has completed construction of the Fonsagrada-Punago wind power complex in the Province of Lugo. ENDESA currently has operative installed wind energy capacity totalling 999 MW, with an additional 163 MW under construction, giving it a national market share of 16.6 %. Year to date, the Company has brought 4 wind parks into operation, representing 77 MW, while it has commenced construction on 7 new farms, which will add 163 MW to current installed capacity....

John Petersen During the fourteen years that I've lived in Switzerland, the Germans have been the world's staunchest supporters of green power and alternative energy. Their aggressive development of wind power was breathtaking, as was their warm embrace of photovoltaic power. Over the last few weeks, however, there has been an ominous change in the mainstream German media's tone as the political class finally comes to grips with the unpleasant reality that rooftop solar panels are worthless on short, grey winter days and "For weeks now, the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany have generated almost no...

Tom Konrad Finavera's Wildmare Wind Energy Project is one of three projects in Bristish Columbia to be sold to Pattern Renewable Energy Holdings Canada for C$40M. An earlier sale to of Wildmare Innergex Renewable Energy fell through in September.  Photo source: Finavera. On October 1st, following the failed sale of Finavera Wind Energy’s (TSX-V:FVR, OTC:FNVRF) 77 MW Wildmare Wind Energy Project to Innergex Renewable Energy Inc (TSX:INE, OTC: INGXF), Finavera announced that it was in talks with three potential bidders and would review all offers for the company.  Finavera...

Worldchanging.com has an article about former soviet weapons designers working with Lawrence Berkely National Latoratory to design a new vertical axis wind turbine. Lawrence Berkeley helped form a new company, known as Wind Sail, to commercialize the new turbine for this Russian group.

Tom Konrad CFA American Superconductor (NASDAQ:AMSC) dropped 52% since their profit warning on April 6th.  Is it a screaming bargain, or does it have farther to fall? Two readers asked me to take a look at American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) after the company issued a profit warning on April 6th.  Although the stock was included in my list Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2011, (which has produced more buying opportunities than profits so far this year) I did not own the stock in any of my managed portfolios, and so the research had to take...

Colorado is the first state in the nation to place renewable energy on its ballots, thanks in part to grassroots support from Summit County. On Nov. 2, Colorado voters will decide whether to require the state's seven largest utilities to generate 10 percent of their electricity from environmentally-friendly sources like wind power by 2015.

Xcel Energy (XEL) received approval from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Wednesday that could triple the company's wind power capacity in Colorado by 2007. The CPUC approved Xcel Energy's proposal to acquire up to 500 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy resources, primarily wind, through an early competitive bidding process. This will allow the company to take advantage of any short-term renewal of the federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy, currently under consideration by Congress. The company also will study the impact that additional renewable resources will have on system reliability, operation, cost and transmission....

A Bet on Wind Industry Growth Tom Konrad, CFA Wind Works Power Corporation (WWPW.OB) presents investors in publicly traded wind power stocks a new type of opportunity with the potential for high reward, and a complementary risk profile to existing plays.   In the past, I've lamented the dearth of choice in publicly traded wind power stocks on North American markets, but both the number and types of opportunities are growing, allowing investors to diversify risk or to make more narrowly focused bets on how they expect the sector to evolve. I classify wind stocks into three types: Wind...

This article is a continuation of my Ten Alternative Energy Speculations for 2008, with picks #8, 9, and10 published last Thursday.  If you haven't already, please read the introduction to that article before buying any of the stock picks that follow.  These companies are likely to be highly volatile, and large positions are not appropriate for many investors.   My least risky picks are part of that same article linked to above; the moderately risky picks are here.  This article contains the most speculative three picks. #3 Nevada Geothermal Power (OTCBB:NGLPF or Toronto:NGP.V) US$1.29 or CAD$1.26 Geothermal first started catching...

Tom Konrad CFA Western Wind and the Toronto Hedge Funds Last October, Western Wind Energy (TSXV:WND, OTC:WNDEF) received an unsolicited takeover bid of $2.50 a share from Algonquin Power (TSX:AQN, OTC:AQUNF) to buy the company.  Before the bid, the stock had been trading in the $1.20-$1.25 range, but President and CEO Jeff Ciachurski felt that it did not fully value the company’s projects and assets, including approximately $1 per share of US tax assets which the Canadian company Algonquin would not be able to use. Large shareholders at the time were in favor of the sale, including at least one shareholder...

Some of you may remember an article I wrote last March about a small Canadian wind turbine maker called AAER Inc (AAERF.PK or AAE.V). In fact, I got a few emails from readers informing me that they'd bought the stock following my article and that they were happy with its performance. The following chart traces the stock's performance between the date of the article (March 7, 2007) and last Friday (May 2, 2008): Since I wrote this article many things have changed with AAER. The Katabatic contract, which is what attracted my attention initially,...

Tom Konrad CFA On July 23rd, Finavera Wind Energy (TSXV:FVR, OTC:FNVRF) announced a deal to sell its 77 megawatt Wildmare Wind Energy Project to Innergex Renewable Energy (TSX:INE, OTC:INGXF.)  The sale will come as a great releif to Finavera’s long-suffering shareholders, who have seen the stock halve in value since the start of the year. I included Finavera in my annual list of clean energy stocks this January because, even at the time, Finavera was trading at a fraction of the value of its wind projects, despite a weak balance sheet.  Since then,...