The two combined projects will form the largest permitted solar photovoltaic power development in the world.
Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. agreed to spend as much as US$2.5-billion to build two solar projects in California that are set to be the world’s largest photovoltaic development.
MidAmerican acquired the 579-megawatt Antelope Valley projects in Kern and Los Angeles counties from SunPower Corp., according to a statement today. MidAmerican will pay San Jose, California-based SunPower US$2-billion to US$2.5-billion for the projects and a three-year contract to build them. SunPower also will operate and maintain the projects under a multiyear agreement with MidAmerican.
Buffett has been increasing investment in wind and solar farms and last year formed a MidAmerican unit to support the projects it’s acquired, including the US$2.4-billion 550-megawatt Topaz solar farm in California. Chief Financial Officer Patrick Goodman said in November the company favors bets on renewable energy amid high utility valuations. California is the biggest U.S. solar market.
The sale gives panel-maker SunPower “a sizable captive demand channel for its modules which should help ensure the company maintains healthy factory utilization levels even if the oversupply conditions in the industry take longer than expected to be resolved,” Ben Kallo and Christopher M. Kovacs, analysts for Robert W. Baird & Co., said in a note Wednesday.
Ingrid Ekstrom, a spokeswoman for SunPower, declined to specify how much of the total amount being spent is construction costs and how much is the purchase price. SunPower is 66% owned by France’s Total SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
2015 Completion
Construction of the Antelope Valley project is due to begin this quarter, with completion by the end of 2015, SunPower said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Together, the two combined projects will form the largest permitted solar photovoltaic power development in the world and will create an estimated 650 jobs during construction,” according to the statement. The projects will provide energy to Edison International under two long-term power-purchase contracts.
MidAmerican Renewables, a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy, has more than 1,830 megawatts of assets, including wind power, geothermal, solar and hydro, according to today’s statement. MidAmerican is owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
SunPower rose 6.6% to $5.99 at 12:28 p.m. in New York. Berkshire, based in Omaha, Nebraska rose 3.4% to $138,653.
SOURCE - Bloomberg News
Showing posts with label warren buffet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warren buffet. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Monday, 2 March 2009
Eco barons lead the way
THE global rich are going green as never before. This first Sunday Times Green Rich List shows that the enthusiasm among the world’s wealthiest for investments in areas as diverse as electric cars, solar power and geothermal energy is unaffected by the recession.
The Green List has unearthed 100 tycoons or wealthy families worth £200m or more who have made either serious investments in green technology and businesses or hefty financial commitments to environmental causes. In total, the Green 100 are worth nearly £267 billion.
This enormous sum demonstrates that many of the world’s richest tycoons and entrepreneurs have embraced environmentalism. Indeed, our list is dominated by America’s wealthiest financiers and entrepreneurs such as Warren Buffett (worth £27 billion) and Bill Gates (worth £26 billion).
These two canny investors, who regularly swap places at the top of Forbes magazine’s annual list of world billionaires, have spent some of their financial firepower on areas such as wind power and electric cars in Buffett’s case, while Gates has backed alternative fuels such as oil from algae. We are not talking trifling sums here. Buffett has invested $230m in the Hong Kong battery-maker BYD.
Many of the 35 Americans in the Top 100 are drawn from Silicon Valley. Having made their first fortunes in microchips, the internet or software, the likes of Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (each worth £7.5 billion) are turning to green investments with all the entrepreneurial zeal that made their first fortunes.
It helps that the Obama administration is committed to a huge stimulus package involving the very technologies that investors are focusing on.
Even tycoons who are not in President Barack Obama’s camp have moved into alternative energy, none more so than T Boone Pickens, oil explorer, corporate raider and a Texan Republican to his core. He is using part of his £1.8 billion fortune on filling the huge and windy Texas Panhandle with turbines as part of his Pickens Plan to wean America off its dependence on foreign energy.
American money may be chasing smarter and greener technologies, while the Chinese rich on our list are definitely about mass production of green technologies.
The 17 Chinese tycoons in the Top 100 are concentrated at the bottom end of the list and they are almost exclusively involved in solar and electric-car technology. It is a ferociously competitive market with unremitting pressure to cut costs and gain market share.
As such, all the Chinese fortunes have been hammered as share prices have fallen sharply. A year ago, many would have been in the Top 50, but not now. Indeed, some of them will not survive the steep downturn they are now battling through. But out of it will emerge winners selling much cheaper and more technically advanced products to a huge market worldwide.
There are 10 British or British-based tycoons on the list. None is going head-to-head with the Chinese in mass production. And they are not taking the German route. The seven German tycoons are largely involved in wind turbines and the like. This is a bespoke market — meat and drink to the German industrial sector.
The pity is that aside from Sir Richard Branson, who is investing in alternative fuels, there are no real British equivalents of Aloys Wobben. A German engineering graduate, Wobben started Enercon in 1984, building his first wind turbine in his back garden. Today the company employs 6,000 staff and exports sophisticated turbines all over the world.
German entrepreneurs who have made their fortunes elsewhere are also moving into green technology in a serious way, defying the prevailing economic gloom.
Twins Andreas and Thomas Strungmann built a £6.8 billion pharmaceutical fortune. Having sold their pharma business, they put many millions into saving a German solar company early last year just as the economic outlook worsened.
America’s wealthy are not just investing in new technology, they are also spending their fortunes on direct environmental activism, saving large tracts of wilderness from developers, endowing university research into green energy, climate change and the like.
This can have a huge impact in changing the mood in favour of more green activism on the political front, making the climate right for Obama to push through radical green initiatives that would not have been contemplated in George Bush’s presidency.
There is little evidence of any appetite among Britain’s super-rich for this approach. Firmly rooted in property, finance or retailing, they have little time or surplus wealth for anything other than lip service to green issues.
They are also involved in firefighting to keep their businesses afloat. When the recession is over, there are precious few forecasters who think the City and the like will return to its glory days.
With traditional factories and industries closing in record numbers, where will Britain’s future prosperity come from? It is a sobering thought.
Source - The Times
The Green List has unearthed 100 tycoons or wealthy families worth £200m or more who have made either serious investments in green technology and businesses or hefty financial commitments to environmental causes. In total, the Green 100 are worth nearly £267 billion.
This enormous sum demonstrates that many of the world’s richest tycoons and entrepreneurs have embraced environmentalism. Indeed, our list is dominated by America’s wealthiest financiers and entrepreneurs such as Warren Buffett (worth £27 billion) and Bill Gates (worth £26 billion).
These two canny investors, who regularly swap places at the top of Forbes magazine’s annual list of world billionaires, have spent some of their financial firepower on areas such as wind power and electric cars in Buffett’s case, while Gates has backed alternative fuels such as oil from algae. We are not talking trifling sums here. Buffett has invested $230m in the Hong Kong battery-maker BYD.
Many of the 35 Americans in the Top 100 are drawn from Silicon Valley. Having made their first fortunes in microchips, the internet or software, the likes of Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (each worth £7.5 billion) are turning to green investments with all the entrepreneurial zeal that made their first fortunes.
It helps that the Obama administration is committed to a huge stimulus package involving the very technologies that investors are focusing on.
Even tycoons who are not in President Barack Obama’s camp have moved into alternative energy, none more so than T Boone Pickens, oil explorer, corporate raider and a Texan Republican to his core. He is using part of his £1.8 billion fortune on filling the huge and windy Texas Panhandle with turbines as part of his Pickens Plan to wean America off its dependence on foreign energy.
American money may be chasing smarter and greener technologies, while the Chinese rich on our list are definitely about mass production of green technologies.
The 17 Chinese tycoons in the Top 100 are concentrated at the bottom end of the list and they are almost exclusively involved in solar and electric-car technology. It is a ferociously competitive market with unremitting pressure to cut costs and gain market share.
As such, all the Chinese fortunes have been hammered as share prices have fallen sharply. A year ago, many would have been in the Top 50, but not now. Indeed, some of them will not survive the steep downturn they are now battling through. But out of it will emerge winners selling much cheaper and more technically advanced products to a huge market worldwide.
There are 10 British or British-based tycoons on the list. None is going head-to-head with the Chinese in mass production. And they are not taking the German route. The seven German tycoons are largely involved in wind turbines and the like. This is a bespoke market — meat and drink to the German industrial sector.
The pity is that aside from Sir Richard Branson, who is investing in alternative fuels, there are no real British equivalents of Aloys Wobben. A German engineering graduate, Wobben started Enercon in 1984, building his first wind turbine in his back garden. Today the company employs 6,000 staff and exports sophisticated turbines all over the world.
German entrepreneurs who have made their fortunes elsewhere are also moving into green technology in a serious way, defying the prevailing economic gloom.
Twins Andreas and Thomas Strungmann built a £6.8 billion pharmaceutical fortune. Having sold their pharma business, they put many millions into saving a German solar company early last year just as the economic outlook worsened.
America’s wealthy are not just investing in new technology, they are also spending their fortunes on direct environmental activism, saving large tracts of wilderness from developers, endowing university research into green energy, climate change and the like.
This can have a huge impact in changing the mood in favour of more green activism on the political front, making the climate right for Obama to push through radical green initiatives that would not have been contemplated in George Bush’s presidency.
There is little evidence of any appetite among Britain’s super-rich for this approach. Firmly rooted in property, finance or retailing, they have little time or surplus wealth for anything other than lip service to green issues.
They are also involved in firefighting to keep their businesses afloat. When the recession is over, there are precious few forecasters who think the City and the like will return to its glory days.
With traditional factories and industries closing in record numbers, where will Britain’s future prosperity come from? It is a sobering thought.
Source - The Times
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