Piggybank

Buying Broadwind on GE, Gamesa Wind Energy Deals

I'm a very active European wind energy investor. Having shares in many turbine company's since 2006 and profiting well from it. Also quite interrested in wind farms.

Repower is currently hot in Europe, it's a wind turbine manufacturer, and it currently produces the largest capacity turbine, 5MW, while their competitors like Gamesa and Vestas make turbines between 2 to 4 MW. Repower is flying atm, but i guess this is less of interrest for US investors.

My current position in wind energy in the USA is in NCEN.ob , a stock mentioned by a commenter here already. It's a very interresting company IMO, a development wind farmer, it is planning to get 80 MW installed by 2010 wich is for a wind farmer a very ambitious outook, and they are on track. Their stock has done great so far, going from 1$ in januari and now trading near 3$. It has a small market cap (60 million $) and to my calculations they only need to turn a few million $ profit a year to make this valuation right at a fair P/E for a fairly good growth company, wel devide 60 million by 15 (a low PE by all means) and you need a anual 4 million$ profit only, wich is small, and PE 15 is way to low for strong growth company's that are wind farmers.

Aother thing to consider is the ease for wind farmers to find customers, basicly just conect to the grid and sell, and if they get good wind they get profitable very easily.

Also to concider is takeovers. Due to high demand in turbine's in Europe recently there have been quite a few small wind farmers takeovers at hefty premiums.

To all Americans: Don't underestimate wind power. USA is big on solar, with good reason, but wind power is actually even closer to grid parity for the best wind spots, and the USA is very busy trying to close the gap with Europe. There is a lot of money to be made in this market, and valuations are far lower than that of solars atm. I think there is a golden opportunity in such stocks as NCEN.ob .

SunPower Chairman Doesn't Talk Green

I think the largest incentive for companies to go for slar would be energy independance, no energy costs eans higher profits, and company's that swim in cash can afford it, it's even an interresting opportunity for them to make an investment that makes them a lot more effeciant profit wise.

SunPower Chairman Doesn't Talk Green

I think the largest incentive for companies to go for slar would be energy independance, no energy costs eans higher profits, and company's that swim in cash can afford it, it's even an interresting opportunity for them to make an investment that makes them a lot more effeciant profit wise.

Trina Solar Scraps Plans for Its Polysilicon Plant: A Bullish Move

There is already a verticly intigrated solar company, Renewable energy corperation is active inthe whole chain, and iirc there are more, so i don't understand this comment:

"Trina was attempting to become the first fully integrated solar panel maker by owning the whole supply chain from polysilicon to end panel"

And personally i like verticly integrated company's.

The Tellurium Supernova Has Erupted

Wel as i said im very bullish on VNP and hold a conciderable position in it. And i would like the extra exposure but it doesn't have to be to open, it's a wonderfull play and i'm pretty sure ill make a load on it.

Umicore doesn't have the tech that VNP has iirc, not by far. And it's less of a "pure play" in this regard, and VNP is expanding side by side with FSLR.

The Tellurium Supernova Has Erupted

Well i rather thought that there were copper mines who just didn't extract the tellerium that they otherwise could because they didn't find it interresting enough. But i'm not skilled enough to talk geoligy neither.

talked it over with others though, and there was one big argument i didn't mention yet, and this argument made a lot of sense with the "collegue's". namely that one of scale:

Fslr revenue's: roughly 200 million $
Fslr profit: roughly 62 million $

VNP revenue: roughly 8 million $
VNP profit: roughly 2 million $

It's like to say with te words of one collegue i would call "the ultimate hedgehog" that it's like comparing the Titanic with a tugboat, although in that fact titanic was a bit badly chosen allusion and we changed it to oil tanker and then we had a discussion as to what an iceberg could do to an oiltanker ... Anyway, it's kinda a drop in the bucket if you consider that from the 8 million $ VNP earns about 6 million $ comes from FSLR, and that aint all that much on a total cost of revenue of about 93 million $ for FSLR. And this is for the most recent quarter when Te had already risen as you noted. Consider that for sell/general/admin expenses FSLR had 3 million $ costs less than last quarter while having rising revenue, enough in that aspect alone to offset these rising Te prices.

consider then that still their raw material inventory's of both company's are rising. you might argue they are hoarding but then the Te price is a bit overprized now and and the hoarding has very few effect on their EBITDA.

this should IMO ultimatly schatter youre argument that "if tellurium price triple or quadruple from current price, it will be enough to kill FSLR as a business." Te seemingly already tripled and it didn't hurt FSLR by a bit, the difference is scale is just to big. For the tripling of Te's price VNP didn't realy ask much of a premium for it's CDTE. Sure it ask what, 1 million $ more from FSLR at the moment? There is still 60 million $ profit for FSLR to go trough. And this rough 1 million $ more paid to FSLR also includes most probably a larger volume of CDTE sold, afterall from the company's balance sheet one can see that their production assets have rizen in the last quarter, by a fair bit to.

The difference of scale is just to big. Atleast more than big enough to push this "issue" much further down the agenda in the future, it's hardly an issue now, you have been posting on this since januari and last FSLR's figure's didn't show anything of a problem in this regard. I doubt shorting FSLR for ths issue alone is a wise choice. Atleast not now.

The Tellurium Supernova Has Erupted

Well i hold a quite fair psition in 5N plus since januari, and i like the company a lot, it has much going for it in these circustances and it is doing really well. As you mentioned, 5N plus is about the only one doing what it does, a monopoly position wich it will be able to profit from a long time, prices for materials that they can set themselfs, and rapidly increasing production. it is also in some other very inovative markets with superior technoligy, and they will start to produce high quality CIGS soon to.

Then again chinama... errr Mark. Several thing's still raise questions with me concerning this. First of all tellirium isn't exactly scarce on the earth, it is just not extracted much yet by the copper producers, but one could think that at certain prices it would become interresting, and that this price might not have to rise that much for it, as well there are clearly already company's extracting it. Maybe FSLR's comments point to the fact tat if needed, more tellirium can be extracted.

Another thing that also deffinatly raises questions with me is the amount of raw material inventory both company's have. Both 5n plus and FSLR have constant rising raw material inventory's. Not only in the last quarter, but also in the quarter before when FSLR's revenue's doubled.

wel many other questions pop up with me. How much cdte does FSLR use per panel and can it change the needed amount in the future, or ramp up the effeciancy of their panel for the same amount of CDTE used? Can FSLR make CDTE for themselfs if needed? Can VNP make CdTE with less TE? Is an increase in TE production in development? Can FSLR outweight rising CdTe prices with technoligy effeciancy?

In my oppinion, this is deffinatly speculation, its just very hard to tell how much FSLR can be affected by this. Don't get me wrong, it's quite interresting speculation that should lead to a nice discussion. I can definatly vouch for you on this board that you are a smart and capable analyst, and youre predictions on PAL, SWC and TE prices back in januari were bang on the money. And this is comming from a person that is not nessecarily in agreement with you on this specific issue, or atleast on how far reaching it is.

Walter Nasdeo, Ardour Capital, Discusses Alternative Energy Stocks, Part II

"We’ve had solar and we had ethanol really stand out as the two major alternative energy investment plays over the last couple of years."

Nonsense, if there is 1 alternative energy type that really played out in the last years, then it's wind energy, and it's not even mentioned here.

Wind energy now has a far larger segment of the alternative energy market than solar and biofuels, and in addition wind energy is growing still faster than these other 2. Wind energy is also expected to reach grid parity faster than solar.

Im not saying Solars are a bad investment, au contraire. But wind energy is IMO even a tad better. Biofuels however, atleast those that use food as input, should be made illigal, it's self destructive idiocy, food prices are rising fast due to it and food shortage's are beginning to surface in certain poorer country's.

Solar Power Plays Look to Grow with Clean Energy Act, Spanish Subsidies

What about the frikkin European solar company's, shouldn't they profit from the Spain case for ex. ? Renesola maybe? Q-cells or REC?

It seems that to SeekingAlpha and so many sites that promote solars, European solar company's simply do not exist!

The Real Solution to the Energy Problem

Conservation will help, but will only get you a bit further. The USA cannot solve it's energy problems with mere conservation alone. We European's conserve a lot more than Americans, but were also pumping more money in renewable energy than the USA and have more installed MW of renewable energy and will continue to evolve at this pace if not faster.

Our traditional energy producing sources are runnig out and they need to be replaced, Peak oil looks real already, there is still enough coal in principle but look at it's price jumping, it's getting less cheaper by the day and thus is loosing it advantage to more costly energy forms bit by bit, while its also poluting. Uranium has also seen a enourmous price surge in recent years, and it's also not a infinite resource. And building Nuclear plants is very costly and time consuming.

Wind energy and Solar technoligy might still be somewhat expensive atm, they have proven to increase in effeciancy over past years, and will do so in the future. Grid parity was already expected fairly soon, conservative models were aiming for 2015, but at the rising costs of other energy forms it looks like wind and solar will hit parity even faster, and after that will even simply become way more effeciant than other energy forms over time.

But once we hit grid parity with renewable energy, and it's getting soon to, then the market will surge. There won't be much reason anymore to not use solar or wind for any new installed MW.

And we need this, not just for nature, our to renew our energy supply, but because we can produce this energy ourself's, independantly, and becuase wind and solar have the potential to become the cheapest forms of energy ever over time, making our economy's that more effeciant and strong, because cheap energy leave's a lot of margin for other thing's. And were on the good way to, the current top solar and Wind company's have all the ace's down their sleeve's to survive and evolve up to this grid parity circumstance, and then they'll become some of the most prominent company's in the world.

An Energy Policy that Makes Cents (and Sense)

Seems like they are finaly realizing in the USA that it's 5 seconds before 12.

I thank my european leaders for having been foreseeing in this regard. Our economy is seemingly still in much better chape due to several good policy's, and were more established in alternative energy, in fact ahead of shedule even. Were already much more energy effeciant, but that can only alleviate a small part of the issue. We have more windmils than we had envisioned before 2010 now already, but we have also set the target high for wind energy until 2020 and 2030.

Even then, there is no limit to thinking what possible energy needs well have in the 21'st century. I spit on the people here talking poppulation control regulations and the like's, what an inhumane and unethical thought, borders facism IMO. Humanity needs to be able to evolve and therefore it will need increasingly more energy.

Try to have vision, vision even beyond mere peak oil issue resolvement. Im in my twenty's, i should envision 50 years ahead. I see the premature robotic dreams they had in the late 20th century come to fruitation in my lifetime, automatization is already a fast growing bussiness, rudimentary robots exist and get better. Computers evolve and decent robotic AI's are not that far in the future at this speed. Think of how much labour we could do in the future if we mobilized our potential to create an near-automated economy. Such progress would even allow us to take space economicly serious. But in the end, to enable us to evolve in this path, well need energy, lots of it, hughe amounts. Energy will be the power by wich humanity will be able to advance further. And the cheaper you can make the energy, the more effeciant the base of the economy will be in a near-automated economy.

The ultimate power of Wind and Solar is that there be virtually no limit to how much output you can get out of it. And their effeciancy can be improved for decade's to come. The cost to wind and solar power now is just a temporarily concern, and even this it's very fastly becoming a moot point. In the future wind and solar will become much more effeciant than any other energy source, to the point that it will virtually cost nothing. The world will get covered by solar panels and wind mills in the decade's to come. Theyll supply the robot's that will work for a fraction of the cost of a human trough advanced technoligy.

In the end, it won't be the country with the cheapest human labour in mass that will become the most powerfull. there is a whole new economy to create with robotics, and it will be up to the first country that takes this vision really serious that will come the fruit of being the most advanced and productionaly potent.

Suntech, SunPower, MEMC and First Solar: Four Solar Stocks Worth Investigating

All these seekingalpha guys forget about such company's as REC and Q-cells. In general there is very very few talk here about european renewable stocks. Even as they hyped the market in 2007 few ever came to talk about such great company's like Vestas or Gamesa, wich is wind power.

But my money is mostly in european renewables. REC, Q-cells, Vestas, Gamesa, and not to forget Roth & Rau, wich is an excelent company and just tottaly forgotten here.

Beware of the Solar Stock Fad

I think you need to be an American to say this kind of stuff.

While many of you americans are driving on high oil consuming SUV's and just waste energy as it's no big deal, atleast here in europe were atleast 10 years ahead in saving our energy with all sorts of measures. Someone here mentioned this energy effeciancy, other ligtbulbs and that kind of stuff. Well i can simply say to them, it doesn't work like that over here in Europe.

Were 10 years ahead in energy saving, but living in brussels i have this very keen sense that the EU will actually expand subsidies to renewables, having read article's from top euro politicians here who all seem to hammer on solar/wind, and who all hate biofuels for the rediculous pricesurge it creates in food and such.

And it's perfectly reasonable from an EU perspective, way to many euro's flow out from the Euro zone to oil producers. And we have emmerging markets to compete with i general economics. If the EU wants to survive as an economic powerhouse in the future then it has to remain on the edge of many technoligies, and alternative energy is one of those technoligy's were were doing quite well in. It's creating jobs for us, we can make an export product of it, it lowers our energy bill, win win win situation. European wind energy is miles ahead of the rest of the world, we have all the top wind turbine manufacturers.

And it's quite simple to piont out that Europe is the largest market for all renewables, Germany on top. In fact America's own solar company's have ther majority sales in Europe. And if europe increases renewables funding then yioure point vanishes into the drain.

it only shows that Americans don't take their energy problems to serious. How else could they have lagged just so far behind Europe. The posters article here just shows that sentiment.

And to US politics. No renewal of renewables funding? Go for it! by 2020 Europe and china will dominate the renwables market. Heck youre own wind farmers aleady buy European turbine's. Keep fooling on!