Nick Gogerty

EnerNoc Harvests Power in Maryland

is there any chance of getting real numbers about enernoc. 250mw of power doesn't tell us much useful, that is a reserve capacity number. We need to know the Megawatt Hours estimated to be sold. Having a capacity contract is one thing, selling part of that capacity and estimated utilization figure quite another.

In a declining period of demand the need for peaking capacity is most likely not peaking. Enernoc and demand management is an interesting idea, but is running into growing head winds: a smarter grid, declining industrial and consumer demand related to economic contraction, increased end point efficiency and smart meter demand reduction due to behaviour changes at the consumer level.

Enernoc is a great company for a growing economy with a maxed out grid, but that economy has receded for the moment.

Uncertain Times for Ener1 - Barron's

I have met the management team of this company and if ego were ebit, they would be a billion $ firm. Ener1 is green ponz.

Stewart vs. Cramer: Long-Term Asset Allocation Incorrectly Maligned

On matters of great financial importance Stewart and Cramer are of equal value. One is a comedian and the other one doesn't recognize he is a joke.

Which Is Worse: Buying Solar Panels from Eurasia or Oil from OPEC?

um, the value add at the cell, panel and module level is minimal due to the commodity nature of these products. The economic margins are de minimus. A typical install on house or commercial roof top is about $7-10 watt. $2-3$ of that will be installation, balance of system and local services. About $0.65-$1.00 will be for the inverter. The article is written without a real understanding of the economic margins in the solar business or economics behind a real system install. Protectionism and protectionist thinking, while popular during times of anxiety are a certain way to amplify an already large problem.

Helicopter Ben Turns into Ballistic Missile

here is a summary of the federal bailout so far. nickgogerty.typepad.co...

Fixing CNBC

CNBC has an average audience of 250k. The demographics indicate average household wealth of $1.2m. Here is some older data from 2008 showing the didn't reach Nielsen minimums. tvbythenumbers.com/200... More recent data reflects similar levels of interest. www.nytimes.com/2009/0...

CNBC like most media has a greatly exaggerated sense of self importance. The germain issue facing CNBC isn't of editorial programming choice, but rather survival.

I give them 6-8 quarters. Every hour spent watching CNBC is a lost opportunity to read a good book, blog or spend time with your family. Invest your time wisely. Your health and your time are your most important assets. Few will look back on their death beds and wished they had spent an extra hour of their lives watching CNBC.

Could PV Go the Way of Toasters?

Just an FYI, the value add in production is pretty limited. An fully installed system costs about $7-10/watt at the residential small commercial level. Most poly, and a-Si PV cells and modules are commodity products with small margins. Inverters make up about 10% of the system cost at $0.70-1.20/watt. Local installation costs and balance of system are usually about $2-$3.5/watt. Installing panels means lots of local construction and installation work. Wherever cheap panels come, from it means local construction and electrical work for installation. Most PV module factories are becoming lights out low labor capital intensive projects with limited margins and lots of robots from Fanuc etc.

Liquidity, Solvency and Acute vs. Chronic Banking Systems

my own thought in terms of replacement operators are private credit providers. Eventually they would morph into banks. Think of the trading houses and agents in Japan.

It would be in efficient and fragile, but evolve and become robust. The current fix may not create a robust system, but rather maintain a chronic one that is systemically beyond recovery.

The Good and Bad in Hedge Funds Today: A Manager's View

nice article and covers the major points well. To the earlier mentioned poster, the largest collective loss set to exceed $1 trillion is in the highly regulated banking sector. Hedge funds love em or hate are private contracts between individuals. Limits do need to be put in place so that systemic risk a la LTCM isn't allowed as that means the public purse bears the brunt. In my mind it will be important to have independant actors "hedge funds" stepping into the breech where other entities may fear to tread. The more public (nationalised) the banks become, the less you can imagine them taking some important risks and offering liquidity to various nooks and crannies of the marketplace.

Why Does VMware Have a Target on Its Back?

VMware has a target on its back because it is overpriced as a business. Virtualization is a feature set masquarading as a franchise. There is no moat to protect the margins going forward. An $8b market cap company in what will most likely be a $1b industry in the next 3 years looks a bit top heavy. I love the company and the products, just hate the economics. Virtualization is just a thin slice in the stack and is easily abstracted away with other solution providers. Desktop virtualization sounds nice, but the cost saving drivers aren't as obvious as on the server side. VM is played out.

When Quants Don't Think

All it takes is for a slight belief in mean variance and the belief in stable or even semi-stable co-variance matrices to induce a dangerous systemic harmonic. Allocations start becoming serially auto-correlated regardless of sensible valuations. Current finance theory is used for risk allocation (see basel 2) which due to an agreed unified framework will lead to more "normal accidents" .

Ukraine's 'Great Depression' Arrives

The geopolitical implications of this are not good. Hungary is already at risk and politically leaning towards the far right. Crisis creates power vacuums and desires for "action".
The regions stresses could lead to more Russo-West relations getting agitated. Any institutional "help" from the West may be mis-interpreted as a threat or medelling by Russia.

Why Forecasters Go to Extremes

CNBC is the WWF of Finance.

How the Crash Will Reshape America

Alexander Hamilton always wanted New York to be the Capital of the US as it would combine the financial and legislative capital. He is getting his wish kind of. I think the financial capital of the US is sadly now also the legislative Capital of the US.

PG&E: Solar Not as Important as Energy Efficiency

The funny thing is smart meters or even simple meters that display use in the home cause a 5-10% reduction in electricity consumption just due awareness of use. www.guardian.co.uk/env...

The technology to display use and flow on a smart meter has been around for 15 years. I have yet to meet a company that makes a return based on its capital base as many regulated utilities do want to either shrink the capital base or the consumption of its product. Smart meter ask yourself cui bono? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...