Low oil prices and the credit crunch are threatening to stall the green revolution. The value of crude has dropped from a summer high of nearly $150 a barrel to below $40, taking the wind out of the sails of turbine manufacturers and others trying to build low-carbon alternatives.
Jeremy Leggett, founder and executive chairman of Solarcentury, says: “Talk of the death of renewables is premature but clearly big solar farms and wind projects are being cancelled. Everything is suffering in the current climate but its my contention that the low oil price is a temporary thing and the growth of renewables will resume.”
Michael Liebreich, chief executive of information provider New Energy Finance, says his leading index of clean-technology companies has fallen from a high of 450 points 12 months ago to 175 points, hit by a triple whammy of lower oil prices, higher costs of capital and fear of more speculative start-up businesses.
But he too is confident that the sector can bounce back. “There was no doubt that there was a certain amount of irrational exuberance over the low-carbon economy. No industry in history has kept up the kind of 40% compound growth rates being ascribed to clean tech so share prices had run up too far and it was time for a correction.”
Clean-tech and renewables stocks have been struggling with more than just sentiment. Indian-based wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy, which has seen its share price plunge by 90% this year, has also been hit by malfunctions and the kind of teething problems it says is are inevitable with new types of technology.
Wind developers in the US have been cutting back in the face of tough new conditions. FPL Group, the US’s largest wind-power operator, is cutting its spending this year by nearly a quarter to $5.3bn (£3.7bn) and new wind-power generation from 1,500 to 1,100 megawatts.
Confidence in the sector has also been rattled by T Boone Pickens, a veteran oil man who delighted environmentalists with a very public conversion when he promised to build the world’s largest wind farm in Texas. He slammed on the brakes in November on the basis that lower oil prices had changed the economics of a scheme that would have powered 1.3m homes.
However the US wind sector has generally been faring better than the British one, thanks to tax breaks. Shell and BP have made it clear they are no longer interested in pursuing UK farms when the investment numbers stack up much better across the Atlantic.
The decision by Shell to pull out of the London Array wind farm was a particular blow to British confidence. The project has been billed as the biggest offshore scheme of its kind in the world but the oil company said the margins were too thin, leaving E.ON of Germany and Dong Energy of Denmark to go it alone.
Anton Milner, the chief executive of Q-Cells, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar cells, cut earnings forecasts recently after being hit by what he described as a “flood” of cancellations from developers of solar-power projects struggling to raise finance. The US manufacturer Evergreen Solar has since delayed an $800m new factory in Asia that would have manufactured enough solar cells to power a city of 500,000 people.
But most industry figures are convinced that though the threat of global recession is slowing down the industry, the future remains bright enough, especially with a new figure taking over the White House. Liebreich says his clean-tech index has seen an “Obama bounce”, rising from a low of 130 to 175 on the back of optimism about the incoming president’s policies.
A raft of radical political appointments – such as Nobel physics laureate Steven Chu as energy secretary – has convinced environmentalists that Barack Obama is serious about his stated aim of hastening progress towards a low-carbon economy with a green New Deal that will reduce his country’s dependence on imported oil.
A quarterly review of climate change-related business opportunities just published by analysts at HSBC says governments are increasingly active. “The engagement of governments has grown globally,” they say. “Across the political spectrum there is now more recognition that climate change is a genuine long-term global issue with real growth potential.”
Martin Wright, managing director of Marine Current Turbines, says no one should expect oil and gas prices to stay low. “Vladimir Putin has already said the era of cheap gas is over and no one knows when peak oil really will come about. So we can expect enormous price volatility, which all points to the need for Britain to develop an independent low-carbon alternative.”
Source - The Guardian
Showing posts with label clean technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clean technology. Show all posts
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Solar panels look brighter with Obama
The election of Barack Obama has put the wind back into the sails of the renewable energy sector, where investor confidence had been badly punctured by the credit crisis. Clean technology and green energy stocks have soared as City analysts predict a major boost from the incoming president.
Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas in the 24 hours before, when they were helped upwards by oil prices returning to above $70 a barrel.
Obama has promised to invest $150bn over 10 years in renewables as part of a wider plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions in a bid to tackle global warming - and create jobs during an economic downturn.
Kate Hampton, head of policy at Climate Change Capital, a UK-based investment manager, was one of many who welcomed the poll result as a massive step forward for renewables.
“We cannot overstate how divisive the Bush administration was, how far behind the US now is in the transition to the low-carbon economy and how high expectations are now that Obama is the president-elect,” she said.
Dean Cooper, alternative energy analyst with Ambrian Partners in London, predicted widespread change in the US with production tax credits for the wind industry increased from one year to seven years and a national renewable-energy guideline introduced alongside a cap-and-trade scheme to give more certainty on a carbon price.
The moves come as Britain has recently put more muscle into its low-carbon drive by creating a new government department to cover energy and climate change, while Spain, Germany and other European nations press ahead with their own plans to boost renewables.
The US election result has provided a much-needed boost at a critical time for an emerging investment sector that risked being crushed by the banking crisis and emerging economic recession. Some companies had seen their share prices halve in the turmoil that began in September.
“Since the onset of the most recent phase of the credit crisis, the European wind sector has been battered with an unweighted average decline of 45% compared to a decline of 23% for both the S&P 500 and FTSE Eurofirst 300 over the same period,” said Michael McNamara, analyst at Jefferies & Co, in a research note published at the height of the sell-off.
“Much of this has been linked to fears that wind power developers would see themselves cut off from access to financing due to a toxic combination of a potential global closure of the project finance market and a drying up of demand for tax equity investment in the US.”
Sentiment in the City and Wall Street has steadied since, but the dependence on project finance at a time when the cost of money has soared continues to cast uncertainty over a sector that is also nervous about rising costs and planning delays in countries such as Britain.
Peter Horsburgh, a manager of the Environmental Technologies Fund, said early start-up businesses were going to find it much harder to raise capital and those who had rushed early into a stockmarket listing could find it hard to win secondary tranches of cash.
“Rights issues are going to be incredibly difficult and yet neither is bank lending going to be easy for small and medium-sized firms,” said Horsburgh, who expects his own fund will look at less speculative, “later stage” companies that have defined revenue streams.
In fact, there is nothing new about volatility in the clean tech and green energy sector, with share prices being driven in the past to hugely inflated levels on the back of hyped euphoria that sucked in investors before being rapidly deflated as realism set in.
The dotcom boom surrounding internet stocks was followed in the US at the turn of the century by a bubble in solar and hydrogen companies that soon burst. A similar spike happened in Europe with Vestas among the companies whose future looked in doubt at one stage.
Global solar stocks have suffered since last Christmas over fears of an oversupply of modules and cells, while wind turbine makers have been hit since the highs of the summer by soaring input costs. Confidence in the offshore wind sector in Britain was also dented by Shell’s decision to sell up its interest in the huge London Array project.
Peter Fusaro, chairman of energy consultant Global Change Associates, said the green investment sector remained still relatively small but “fat with hype and fluff”.
But it is also growing. Whereas there were four hedge funds looking at the sector in 2004 there are more than 90 today, while an estimated 4,000 private equity funds are said to be targeting the sector, according to Fusaro.
But the profit margins in many of the renewable sectors are relatively small, making them particularly vulnerable to a serious global economic slowdown and rising inflation. However, Kevin Collins, chief operating officer at the specialist renewables insurer GCube, said he was confident of the long-term value in the sector. He also warned: “Are the banks and lenders going to be in a position to finance projects as they were? We don’t see a massive slow-up in demand yet, but its early days and while renewables will continue to grow it is difficult to say at what rate.”
Many of the pioneers of low-carbon energy are dependent on public subsidy to survive. There is a question over whether bank bail-outs will have drained the state coffers and lead to a slowdown in environmental grants.
France, Germany and Austria have already called for an easing of European Union climate goals to help industries cope better with the downturn. In Washington one Republican senator said, on condition of anonymity, that the green bubble had burst.
“There is a very large question mark hanging over the idea that Congress would take economy-wide action on global warming with the economy in such anaemic shape,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
Source - The Guardian
Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas in the 24 hours before, when they were helped upwards by oil prices returning to above $70 a barrel.
Obama has promised to invest $150bn over 10 years in renewables as part of a wider plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions in a bid to tackle global warming - and create jobs during an economic downturn.
Kate Hampton, head of policy at Climate Change Capital, a UK-based investment manager, was one of many who welcomed the poll result as a massive step forward for renewables.
“We cannot overstate how divisive the Bush administration was, how far behind the US now is in the transition to the low-carbon economy and how high expectations are now that Obama is the president-elect,” she said.
Dean Cooper, alternative energy analyst with Ambrian Partners in London, predicted widespread change in the US with production tax credits for the wind industry increased from one year to seven years and a national renewable-energy guideline introduced alongside a cap-and-trade scheme to give more certainty on a carbon price.
The moves come as Britain has recently put more muscle into its low-carbon drive by creating a new government department to cover energy and climate change, while Spain, Germany and other European nations press ahead with their own plans to boost renewables.
The US election result has provided a much-needed boost at a critical time for an emerging investment sector that risked being crushed by the banking crisis and emerging economic recession. Some companies had seen their share prices halve in the turmoil that began in September.
“Since the onset of the most recent phase of the credit crisis, the European wind sector has been battered with an unweighted average decline of 45% compared to a decline of 23% for both the S&P 500 and FTSE Eurofirst 300 over the same period,” said Michael McNamara, analyst at Jefferies & Co, in a research note published at the height of the sell-off.
“Much of this has been linked to fears that wind power developers would see themselves cut off from access to financing due to a toxic combination of a potential global closure of the project finance market and a drying up of demand for tax equity investment in the US.”
Sentiment in the City and Wall Street has steadied since, but the dependence on project finance at a time when the cost of money has soared continues to cast uncertainty over a sector that is also nervous about rising costs and planning delays in countries such as Britain.
Peter Horsburgh, a manager of the Environmental Technologies Fund, said early start-up businesses were going to find it much harder to raise capital and those who had rushed early into a stockmarket listing could find it hard to win secondary tranches of cash.
“Rights issues are going to be incredibly difficult and yet neither is bank lending going to be easy for small and medium-sized firms,” said Horsburgh, who expects his own fund will look at less speculative, “later stage” companies that have defined revenue streams.
In fact, there is nothing new about volatility in the clean tech and green energy sector, with share prices being driven in the past to hugely inflated levels on the back of hyped euphoria that sucked in investors before being rapidly deflated as realism set in.
The dotcom boom surrounding internet stocks was followed in the US at the turn of the century by a bubble in solar and hydrogen companies that soon burst. A similar spike happened in Europe with Vestas among the companies whose future looked in doubt at one stage.
Global solar stocks have suffered since last Christmas over fears of an oversupply of modules and cells, while wind turbine makers have been hit since the highs of the summer by soaring input costs. Confidence in the offshore wind sector in Britain was also dented by Shell’s decision to sell up its interest in the huge London Array project.
Peter Fusaro, chairman of energy consultant Global Change Associates, said the green investment sector remained still relatively small but “fat with hype and fluff”.
But it is also growing. Whereas there were four hedge funds looking at the sector in 2004 there are more than 90 today, while an estimated 4,000 private equity funds are said to be targeting the sector, according to Fusaro.
But the profit margins in many of the renewable sectors are relatively small, making them particularly vulnerable to a serious global economic slowdown and rising inflation. However, Kevin Collins, chief operating officer at the specialist renewables insurer GCube, said he was confident of the long-term value in the sector. He also warned: “Are the banks and lenders going to be in a position to finance projects as they were? We don’t see a massive slow-up in demand yet, but its early days and while renewables will continue to grow it is difficult to say at what rate.”
Many of the pioneers of low-carbon energy are dependent on public subsidy to survive. There is a question over whether bank bail-outs will have drained the state coffers and lead to a slowdown in environmental grants.
France, Germany and Austria have already called for an easing of European Union climate goals to help industries cope better with the downturn. In Washington one Republican senator said, on condition of anonymity, that the green bubble had burst.
“There is a very large question mark hanging over the idea that Congress would take economy-wide action on global warming with the economy in such anaemic shape,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
Source - The Guardian
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
SolarWorld Opens North America's Largest Solar Cell Manufacturing Facility
SolarWorld has opened North America's largest solar cell manufacturing facility. The new plant is located in Hillsboro, Oregon and is expected to reach a capacity of 500 megawatts (MW) by 2011.
Solar power is increasingly considered the most promising energy alternative because of advances in technology and high-volume manufacturing. Facilities like the one SolarWorld is pioneering will reduce the costs of solar power and increase the number of green jobs, accelerating commercial and residential installations of solar panels and overall economic growth.
"The need for affordable and efficient energy alternatives represents a global issue and is more critical than ever," said Frank A. Asbeck, CEO of SolarWorld.
"SolarWorld has more than 30 years invested in solar technologies and today is helping to bring real alternatives to market through a strategy focused on high-volume manufacturing. The new Hillsboro facility is our most shining example of this strategy in practice."
The solar industry is expected to grow to $74 billion in 2017 from $20 billion in 2007, according to a projection by Clean Edge Inc., a market research firm focused on clean technology.
SolarWorld's fully integrated solar silicon wafer and solar cell production facility will fuel this burgeoning market. The company expects to employ 1,000 people at the Hillsboro facility by 2011 to meet this increasing demand worldwide.
SolarWorld Hillsboro is a 480,000 square foot facility, measuring one-quarter mile end-to-end. Raw silicon is transformed through the manufacturing process into solar cells that are shipped to the SolarWorld Camarillo plant where they are processed into solar panels.
SolarWorld acquired the Hillsboro factory, which belonged to Japan's Komatsu Group, in March 2007 for $40 million and is investing more than $400 million in the new facility. The Hillsboro plant today becomes home to SolarWorld Industries America headquarters.
"SolarWorld Hillsboro illustrates how we move the needle on delivering solar energy, and on a global economy that is fueled by green jobs," said Boris Klebensberger, Chief Operations Officer.
"The Pacific Northwest possesses a hotbed of talent in both silicon manufacturing and clean-technologies. Oregon is the obvious choice for where to undertake this new level of solar cell manufacturing."
Oregon officials, including Governor Ted Kulongoski, Congressmen David Wu and Senator Ron Wyden joined SolarWorld executives and community members today for a Grand Opening Ceremony that included a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour.
Headquartered in Germany and founded n 1977, SolarWorld is a veteran of the clean tech industry in a sea of startups. The company conducted its IPO in Germany in 1999 when most technology companies were emerged in dotcom. Today, SolarWorld is one of the most successful clean tech companies on the planet.
SolarWorld has production facilities in Germany and the United States, including in California, Oregon and Washington, and is establishing a joint venture for module production in South Korea. The company delivers its products to market from sales offices in Germany, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and the United States.
Source - Solar daily
Solar power is increasingly considered the most promising energy alternative because of advances in technology and high-volume manufacturing. Facilities like the one SolarWorld is pioneering will reduce the costs of solar power and increase the number of green jobs, accelerating commercial and residential installations of solar panels and overall economic growth.
"The need for affordable and efficient energy alternatives represents a global issue and is more critical than ever," said Frank A. Asbeck, CEO of SolarWorld.
"SolarWorld has more than 30 years invested in solar technologies and today is helping to bring real alternatives to market through a strategy focused on high-volume manufacturing. The new Hillsboro facility is our most shining example of this strategy in practice."
The solar industry is expected to grow to $74 billion in 2017 from $20 billion in 2007, according to a projection by Clean Edge Inc., a market research firm focused on clean technology.
SolarWorld's fully integrated solar silicon wafer and solar cell production facility will fuel this burgeoning market. The company expects to employ 1,000 people at the Hillsboro facility by 2011 to meet this increasing demand worldwide.
SolarWorld Hillsboro is a 480,000 square foot facility, measuring one-quarter mile end-to-end. Raw silicon is transformed through the manufacturing process into solar cells that are shipped to the SolarWorld Camarillo plant where they are processed into solar panels.
SolarWorld acquired the Hillsboro factory, which belonged to Japan's Komatsu Group, in March 2007 for $40 million and is investing more than $400 million in the new facility. The Hillsboro plant today becomes home to SolarWorld Industries America headquarters.
"SolarWorld Hillsboro illustrates how we move the needle on delivering solar energy, and on a global economy that is fueled by green jobs," said Boris Klebensberger, Chief Operations Officer.
"The Pacific Northwest possesses a hotbed of talent in both silicon manufacturing and clean-technologies. Oregon is the obvious choice for where to undertake this new level of solar cell manufacturing."
Oregon officials, including Governor Ted Kulongoski, Congressmen David Wu and Senator Ron Wyden joined SolarWorld executives and community members today for a Grand Opening Ceremony that included a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour.
Headquartered in Germany and founded n 1977, SolarWorld is a veteran of the clean tech industry in a sea of startups. The company conducted its IPO in Germany in 1999 when most technology companies were emerged in dotcom. Today, SolarWorld is one of the most successful clean tech companies on the planet.
SolarWorld has production facilities in Germany and the United States, including in California, Oregon and Washington, and is establishing a joint venture for module production in South Korea. The company delivers its products to market from sales offices in Germany, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and the United States.
Source - Solar daily
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