Bill Paul

Clean Energy Investors Can't Afford to Overlook 'Dirty' Firms

The problem with Duke and Southern is that, as "regulated" utilities, DUK and SO face a lot of financial uncertainty regarding how much they'll be able to recover from ratepayers.

VW as a Home Energy Provider

On cost -- should be cheaper because it's power and heat combined. CHP's inherently more cost-efficient.
On where Germany will get the gas: Russia today, but they're pushing to develop coal gasification and bio-gas technology

EnerNOC, Comverge May Be Today's Best Alternative Energy Pure Plays

Annualgain: I like a couple of things about EnerNOC. One is that demand response (aka, negawatts) is increasingly becoming a baseload power source in the eyes of regulators, who keep watching regional reserve margins shrink. Another is that, assuming a cap-and-trade market comes to U.S., EnerNOC is likely to profit from selling the carbon credits its DR contracts generate. Still another is that EnerNOC is branching out into providing carbon footprint information to its corporate customers; tens of thousands of U.S. firms will soon be required to keep track of their individual footprints under new U.S. EPA regulations. One other thing: both EnerNOC and Comverge would seem to have the potential to become takeover candidates.

William Taylor: Given the environmental restraints being imposed especially on the ISOs in New England and New York, Beacon "may" have a future. But in an industry that often moves at a glacial pace, I'm not sure whether innovative flywheel technology will beat out traditional battery storage technologies.

Hope that helps.