by Daryl Roberts

A potentially paradigm-shifting technology has been under development at an R&D firm in NJ called Brilliant Light Power.   For people monitoring the situation, the question currently is about the status of commercialization.   It is not a publicly held firm, but is in mid-stages of private equity capitalization in the range of $100-120M.

I recently read a book  titled “Randall Mills and the Search for Hydrino Energy“, offering a detailed and compelling history of the development of this novel renewable energy technology, authored by an insider, an intern who stayed on to work there for several years (published in 2016, with company data as of end of 2015).  In order to provide some context, this article will summarize the concept, breakthrough achievements, compare its levelized costs to other generation technologies, offer a brief review of validation efforts, and touch on personnel and capitalization.   I will try to be faithful to information presented in the book and website materials, and will try identify my own cautious opinions in context.

Concept

The technology was developed by Randall Mills, whose special talents manifested while still a graduate student in physics at Harvard, when he made a discovery in 1989 while exploring a foundational question in physics about why an orbiting electron did not radiate away its energy.   Quantum mechanics diverged from classical mechanics without ever answering this question.  Mills emerged with a revised classical theory that included the proposition that hydrogen’s ground state can in fact be lower than previously thought, that it can have fractional ground states.

According to Mills’ theory, hydrogen can react with a catalyst in a 2-step process, in which first a small amount of energy is transferred by a process called resonant inductive coupling, in integer increments of 27.2 eV.  When this photon is accepted by the catalyst from the atomic hydrogen, the hydrogen electron then becomes unstable and will decay into a lower, fractional orbital, closer to the nucleus.  This 2^nd step releases a larger increment of energy than would be predicted by any other known chemical reactions,   200x higher than burning hydrogen.  The ending species of hydrogen was dubbed a “hydrino”.

Validation

Mills documents extensive experimental confirmation, which to date has identified hydrino states of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, down to 1/10 (orbital shell distance below 1.0 ground state).  The theory calculates possible hydrinos with a theoretical limit of 1/137, constrained by relativistic speeds for the electron travel.

The book documents Mills’ 25-year journey of verification, both with collaborators and validation by a growing number of independent investigators who report finding confirmation in a wide range of experimental configurations.  Mills was prolific in publishing his findings in the face of persistent resistance from establishment figures, in progressively more prestigious journals. The reference section of the book documents 96 journal articles with Mills as primary author(as of late 2015, now over 100), 52 journal articles with non-BLP primary authors, and 31 other technical reports regarding hydrino research by various universities, national labs and corporations.

Early lab set ups involved low temperature electrolytic cells, but Mills eventually found that the phenomenon could be triggered and measured more successfully in high temperature plasma conditions.  Subsequently, tests were constructed using various types of instrumentation, & validated by leading experimentalists in this field, experts in thermal measurement.    A summary of the full extent of the verification data discussed in the book and website materials is beyond the scope of this article.   But it’s worth including one slide which shows a list of 29 types of confirming evidence that has been compiled to date, including 7 or  8 types of spectroscopy and 4 or 5 types of calorimetry.

On the website, most of the Validation Reports are compiled under the technology tab and also under the News/ What’s New tab.  The focus seems to be weighted most heavily on confirming that the energy is generated by the hydrino reaction process.   Business presentations pdf’s, PowerPoints & videos of conference are in the News / Archive tab.   The validation page reports 4 independent studies in 2020, 3 in 2019, 5 in 2016, and an additional 17 earlier reports.

Energy Gain

The specific excess heat generated is not documented uniformly within a single reference system.  As I searched to compile these results, I found various expressions of “gain” cited in PowerPoint slides reporting outcomes from a range of experiments, as follows:

• “energy gain of 200-500x”
• “Optical energy output of 30x input”
• In a table identifying specific experiments showing a gain column, with 3 cases with highest values showing 399x, 279x & 213x
• “peak power 20MW, time-avg power 4.6MW, optical emission energy 250x applied energy”
• “input power 6.68 kW, output 1,260 kW” 1260/6.68 = 188x
• in terms of power density, as “20MW in microliters”, and elsewhere “billions of watts per liter”
• the 2020 validation studies report finding that hydrino plasma produced excess power of 275kW, 340kW, 200kW & 300kW respectively.
• 2019 report power levels of 1000kW & 100kW.
• 2016 studies report 514kW of optical power & 1.3MW peak power; 689kW with 28x gain; thermal power levels of 440kW; & 1.5MW continuous power from 8.6kW input (1500/8.6 = 174x)

It would benefit the company to clarify and reconcile these value, especially when differing by orders of magnitude, ie., in ranges of 10x vs 100x.  This would help to make clear the specific the relationship between these output values and the resulting dramatic reductions in cost of energy production per kW, which are discussed further below.

SunCell

The experimental configurations evolved from demonstrating the effect in single shot events, to systems that could sustain continuous reactions and maintain a stable plasma.  These early events in which a target material was bombarded by a catalyst along with a high current, low voltage electrical discharge to create the plasma conditions, resulted in an excess of energy so hot that even electrodes made of tungsten were vaporized.

The next steps involved engineering design to develop a commercial prototype, and optimization of supporting systems.   The most challenging practical problem was designing an electrode that could withstand the high temperatures.  This was solved by making the electrode entirely liquid, an arcing molten metallic silver electrode with a continuous feed, into which the catalyst was mixed, which enabled a continuous plasma reaction.   The reaction took place in a small containment vessel, with the two feeder systems, one for the liquid silver, the other for moving the atomic oxygen and hydrogen in and hydrinos out.  The plasma is maintained at 400⁰C and generated very high energy photonic radiation in the Extreme Ultra Violet frequency range (EUV), producing excess heat and molecular signatures confirming Hydrino profiles.   Supporting systems were engineered for hydrolysis of the water, for induction pumping the silver, for heat transfer systems, and for electrical offtake.

The system was branded the “SunCell”.

The reaction produces no emissions other than the reduced hydrinos, which are 64x smaller volume than ordinary hydrogen.   Current design captures the hydrino gas in a charcoal trap or a milled halide hydroxide crystalline matrix to which the hydrinos can bind.  If exhausted into the air, it is inert, non-toxic, lighter than helium and would rise to the upper atmosphere.

The power from the plasma can be utilized either directly as heat with heat exchangers or can be converted to electricity by means of two distinct offtake technology configurations, that were developed and patented:

• Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV) – the EUV can be converted by stepping down the frequency to the visible spectrum by means of “blackbody radiation”. The containment shell is made of refractory materials to optimize this conversion to optical energy which can then be captured with concentrating photovoltaic cells arrayed around the blackbody. The containment sphere is in essence like the filament of a light bulb, capturing multiple suns 24 hours a day, without intermittency.

• MagnetoHydroDynamic (MHD) – the plasma heats an expanding gas seeded with conducting silver nanoparticles is passed through a transverse magnetic field, converting kinetic energy to electricity.

The more detailed engineering diagram of the SunCell PV design gives a better sense of the relatively compact scale of the device, in this instance only about 3ft high from the base platform.

The device has very high power densities, can produce continuous power at 20MW/ liter.   Below is a working demonstrator prototype in 2016.

To illustrate the comparative power density of the SunCell compared to other stationary concentrating solar applications, they show this slide:Costs

Costs are low because the capital costs to construct the devices are low, one estimate was $60/kW, which is less than 2% of capital costs for solar.  Other operating costs are negligible, for maintenance & fuel, because other than the hydrogen fuel, which is derived from water, all the other materials, recycle within the device, and with few if any moving parts, and so can be expected to have life cycles of 20 years or more.   The resulting energy costs are estimated at $.01/kWh, substantially lower than any other source.In business presentations from 2016, BLP made an attempt to provide more conservative comparisons using the Levelized Cost of Energy tables provided annually from asset manager Lazard considered to be the most reliable & comprehensive surveys are available.  Using the most recent report published 11/7/19, BKP places their LCOE in this context, projecting costs at approximately 50% below the cost of solar & 30% less than Gas Combined Cycle. 

With such low operating & capital costs, the revenue model is based on a flat per diem energy lease transaction rather than a metered price per kWh.  Revenue is modeled based on a “breakthrough rate” below $.05/kWh, which is an arbitrary price sufficiently below market prices of competing sources, but with an enormous built in margin.   Most of the pricing would be based on off-grid provisioning, rather than through the wholesale market auctions through ISOs and other grid operators.  Hence, the capex & operating costs would represent approximately only 2-5%, with net earnings above 90%.

Costs will improve at scale, as the largest costs are for the CPV components.  At production rates of 10GW annually, the estimated costs of the CPV cells are $32 per kW at concentration of 2000 Suns. A cost analysis for parts for a production model of the 2000 suns version show the PV cell assembly constitutes 60%, or $15,000 out of the total of $25,000.  But at higher temperature plasmas, at 10,000 Suns concentration, optimizing output efficiencies, CPV costs drop to less than $6 per kW, or $2800, down to 23%.

Status of Commercialization

If the experimental validation data is accepted, and the resulting production cost calculations are supportable, the pressing question is:  what is the status of commercialization? Why are we not seeing some of these devices appearing in the market yet?  What is holding up the show?  The book doesn’t get into this issue, although the author has communicated his intent to update with a 2^nd edition that explains how this next phase has evolved since 2016.

The website unfortunately does not provide an easily accessible section featuring a sequential history of the  commercialization status, either in a front page or a top line item in a dropdown menu, or a side bar or a featured story.   However, digging deeper, comparing earlier & later website materials, the narrative can be reconstructed.   The two main sources are Business Plan pdfs, & Demonstration Days, found under different tabs.

Business Plan pdf’s:

Earlier commercialization plans indicate the first target market will be industrial thermal energy users.  The SunCell operates 3x more efficiently & 2.5x lower costs if the end product is process heat only, and the electric conversion phase of the system is not included.  BLP envisioned the rollout timeline as shown below, as of 6/14/19. In Phase 1, after industrial users, commercial & residential thermal users are targeted next.  Heat for high GHG generators, steel & concrete are targeted later presumably because those industries are more resistant to change.
Phase 2 targets electricity markets, initially with the SunCell Photovoltaic design scaled to 10kW – 150kW.  The next target would be scaled to 250kW – 2MW, to address Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) for industrial, commercial and multi-tenant residential buildings, providing micro-grid power that can be “islanded” from grid connection, simplifying system designs to eliminate the need for battery storage systems, and eliminating the utility connection costs & queueing time delays.  SunCells can operate continuously, but can also be taken off line without curtailment or the need to redirect current to storage.  They can be simply shutting down with smart controls to smooth peaking and manage very short ramping & re-start times.   Multiple SunCells can be networked with low voltage private grid interconnections, minimizing the need to even interface with the public grid, reducing complications associated with utility permitting.  Further, the potential for micro-grid configurations in rural applications could offer solutions to the wildfire risks in California.

Phase 3 addresses transportation applications in a subsequent phase, for trains, large-scale marine (transport ships that currently burn high emission bunker oil), buses & trucks, and ultimately passenger vehicles and electric aviation.  The MHD version can be scaled down for light vehicles to a size much smaller than either internal combustion engines or EV batteries.

Demonstration Days, found under the News/Archive tab, includes 6 videos of roadshow presentations, with slides, from 1/28/14 – 10/26/16, and 4 additional presentations actually called “Roadshows” (although it is not clear that any of the roadshows are intended to be investor pitches).

Information most relevant to the status of commercialization were a) presentations by two contracted engineering firms, and b) reference in one of the last Demo Day pdfs to a new set of contractors.

• Columbia Tech which is a mid-sized management firm in Boston, not a GE or Siemens, but does $200M/yr revenues, has 500 employees, was selected by BLP to manage transitional processes moving from the development engineering being done at BLP to the production engineering which may be further farmed out. They presented slides indicating where it thinks BLP is in the process.

This is a nice schematic infographic, but there was little in the content of the presenter’s material that disclosed that CT had actually started doing any work, or that there was an expected date for BLP to begin handing off tasks for CT to execute on its path to production development.   Later in that same Demo Day, the in-house marketing director showed his own similar schematic, which added some detail but no new information about actual developments.

• Masimo (formerly Spire, a PV manufacturer) contracted to develop a custom CPV system. However, Masimo also has disappeared, no further reference to either progress on their assigned contract, or that they are even still an industrial partner.  Instead, in some later pdf slides, there is indication in some indication that BLP has reconsidered using non-concentrating PV, that they have been making a closer cost benefit analysis.

In the last roadshow pdf 9/12/17, slides #42 – #47 indicated new progress:

• TMI Climate Solutions (subsidiary of MiTek, a Berkshire-Hathaway company) appears to have been engaged to develop designs for boilers to offtake heat for thermal applications;
• Re Columbia Tech, they announce: “SunCell Commercialization engineering is mature enough to be outsourced to CT. Equipment is being fabricated, procured, shipped”.  It seems to be associated with updated injector design solutions.   Despite this promising indication, there was no further updates about CT after this report. 
• PV development progress: indicates changes in design parameters, & perhaps a change from Masimo to SpectroLab (a Boeing company) to complete the development of the triple junction concentrator cells.

6/14/19 is the most recent update in a Business Presentation pdf.  However, the material merely refined prior messaging, with some updates of prototyping and engineering solutions of SunCell system components, some new validation experiments conducted by independent scientists, and another review of 17 out of the 29 methods for verification of the Hydrino explanation.   However, there were no further updates from ColumbiaTech, Spectrolab or Masimo, TMI Climate Solutions, or any other development partner about component status or overall system fabrication design status.

Advisory Board:   Most have relevant experience in renewable energy development, seem to be well chosen to facilitate the development goals, and some have very high level backgrounds, such as James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA.   This is at least a hopeful indicator that people with both management talent and influence consider the technology to have potential, & whose presence would tend to exert pressure for development progress.

$100 -120m of investment capital is mentioned in scattered references, all of which is from private equity offerings, but investors are NOT disclosed anywhere in the website.  In another reference, there was an indication that some of the other investors were utilities, including a rural electric coop in NM, which may have participated by placing pre-orders rather than taking equity.

The Wikipedia page, which is very one-sided & antagonistic, states:   “…Investors include PacifiCorp, Conectiv, retired executives from Morgan Stanley^[12] and several former BLP board members:

1. Shelby Brewer who was the top nuclear official for the Reagan Administration and CEO of ABB-Combustion Engineering Nuclear Power^[17][18] ,
2. Michael H. Jordan(1936 – 2010), CEO of PepsiCo , Westinghouse Electric Corporation, CBS Corporation and Electronic Data Systems.^[17]”.

Conclusion

With so much potential for triggering transformation with a technology that leaps forward in efficiency & costs and significantly reduces GHG emissions both in fabrication and operation, one can only hope that Brilliant Light Power will be able to accelerate their commercial development process, and upgrade their website to be able to make updates more transparent and accessible.

The post Brilliant Light Power – Commercialization Status appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Solar farm owner and developer stocks are publicly traded companies who develop or manufacture equipment that converts sunlight into other types of useful energy.  Includes manufacturers and developers of both solar photovoltaic and solar thermal equipment, as well as their supply chain.

This list was last updated on 3/21/2022.

See also the list of Solar Manufacturing Stocks, the list of Residential Solar Stocks, and solar and wind inverter stocks.

7C Solarparken AG (HRPK.DE)
Abengoa SA (ABG.MC, ABGOY, ABGOF)
Acciona, S.A. (ANA.MC, ACXIF)
Adani Green Energy (ADANIGREEN.NSE)
Algonquin Power and Utilities (AQN, AQN.TO)
Atlantica Yield PLC (AY)
Azure Power Global Ltd. (AZRE)
Bluefield Solar Income Fund (BSIF.L)
Boralex (BLX.TO, BRLXF)
Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners (BEP)
Canadian Solar (CSIQ)
Capital Stage AG (CAP.DE)
Clearway Energy, Inc. (CWEN, CWEN-A)
Edisun Power Europe AG (ESUN.SW)
Etrion Corp. (ETX.TO, ETRXF)
Canadian Solar (CSIQ)
First Solar Inc (FSLR)
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. (3800.HK)
Iberdrola, S.A. (IBE.MC, IBDSF, IBDRY)
Infigen Energy Limited (IFN.AX, IFGNF)
Infraestructura Energética Nova, S.A.B. de C.V. (IENOVA.MX)
Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. (INE.TO, INGXF)
JinkoSolar Holding Co. (JKS)
Greenbriar Capital Corp. (GRB.V)
Guggenheim Global Solar ETF (TAN)
Neoen S.A (NEOEN.PA)
New Energy Exchange Limited (EBODF)
NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NEP)
NextEra Energy, Inc. (NEE)
Northland Power Inc. (NPI.TO, NPIFF)
Panda Green Energy Group Limited (0686.HK)
Premier Power Renewable Energy (PPRW)
Principal Solar (PSWW)
Renesola Ltd. (SOL)
ReNew Energy Global plc (RNW)
RGS Energy (RGSE)
Scatec Solar ASA (SSO.OL)
Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited (1165.HK)
Sky Solar Holdings Ltd. (SKYS)
Solar Wind Energy Tower (SWET)
Solaria Energía y Medio Ambiente, S.A. (SLR.MC, SEYMF)
Sunpower (SPWR)
Sunvalley Solar, Inc. (SSOL)
Sunworks, Inc. (SUNW)
Terraform Power, Inc. (TERP)
The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG.L)
US Solar Fund PLC (USF.L)
UGE International (UGE.V)
Vivint Solar (VSLR)
Yingli Green Energy Holding Company (YGEHY)

If you know of any solar farm developer or owner stock that is not listed here and should be, please let us know by leaving a comment. Also for stocks in the list that you think should be removed.

The post List of Solar Farm Owner and Developer Stocks appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

This list was last updated on 6/6/2022.

Solar manufacturing stocks are publicly traded companies who develop or manufacture equipment that converts sunlight into other types of useful energy.  Includes manufacturers and developers of both solar photovoltaic and solar thermal equipment, as well as their supply chain.

See also the list of Solar Farm Owner and Developer Stocks, the list of Residential Solar Stocks, and solar and wind inverter stocks.

5N Plus Inc (VNP.TO, FPLSF)
Amtech Systems Inc (ASYS)
Array Technologies, Inc. (ARRY)
Apollo Solar Energy (ASOE)
Ascent Solar Technologies Inc (ASTI)
Canadian Solar (CSIQ)
DAQO New Energy Corp. (DQ)
First Solar Inc (FSLR)
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. (3800.HK)
Guggenheim Global Solar ETF (TAN)
Hanwha Q CELLS Co., Ltd. (HQCL)
Iberdrola, S.A. (IBE.MC, IBDSF, IBDRY)
Infraestructura Energética Nova, S.A.B. de C.V. (IENOVA.MX)
JA Solar Holdings (JASO)
JinkoSolar Holding Co. (JKS)
LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (LDKYQ)
LG Electronics Inc. (066570.KS)
Mechanical Technology (MKTY)
Meyer Burger (MBTN.SW, MYBUF)
REC Silicon ASA (REC.OL)
Scatec Solar ASA (SSO.OL)
Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited (1165.HK)
SolarWindow (WNDW)
SolarWorld AG (SRWRF)
Spire Corporation (SPIR)
STR Holdings, Inc. (STRI)
Sunpower (SPWR)
Sunvault Energy, Inc. (SVLT)
SwissINSO Holding Inc. (SWHN)
Timminco Ltd (TIMNF)
Yingli Green Energy Holding Company (YGEHY)

If you know of any solar manufacturing or supply chain stock that is not listed here and should be, please let us know by leaving a comment. Also for stocks in the list that you think should be removed.

The post List of Solar Manufacturing Stocks appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Doug Young

Bottom line: Strong response to Tesla’s latest EV in China and a major new solar plant plan from SolarReserve reflect Beijing’s strong promotion of new energy, which is also creating big waste by attracting unqualified companies to the sector.

A series of new reports is showing how Beijing’s strong support for new energy technologies is benefiting both domestic and foreign companies, as China tries to become a global leader in this emerging area. But the reports also spotlight the dangers that come with such aggressive support, which often leads to abuse of subsidies and other preferential policies that can lead to big waste and market distortions.

One of the reports centers on US new energy car superstar Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA), and quotes an executive saying that China has become the second largest market for its newest and first relatively affordable electric vehicle (EV). The second report comes from the solar energy sector, and has US solar plant developer SolarReserve LLC in a major new partnership to build more than $2 billion worth of solar farms in China.

While both of those developments look positive, and reflect big government incentives on offer, the third news item highlights the darker side of Beijing’s largess. That story comes from leading financial news magazine Caixin, whose investigative report shows how many of China’s smaller automakers have become addicted to grants and other subsidies for new energy car development and rely on such money for their profits.

Let’s begin with the Tesla story, which comes as the company tries to gain some traction in China after a poor start 2 years ago. Following positive reviews and strong initial orders for its new Model 3, costing just $35,000, Tesla’s Asia chief Ren Yuxiang is saying in an interview that China has become the second largest market for pre-orders for the new car, presumably after only the US. (English article; Chinese article)

Ren didn’t give any figures, but Tesla previously said it had received 400,000 pre-orders for the Model 3, which won’t be available in China until sometime next year. One Chinese media report also points out that Tesla has said it is exploring setting up a manufacturing plant in China, and that local reports have indicated that plant would be in the city of Suzhou not far from Shanghai.

New Solar Power Plants

Next there’s the solar plant news, which comes in a report that says SolarReserve and local partner coal producer Shenhua (HKEx: 1088) will jointly spend up to 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) to develop solar farms in China. (English article) Projects developed by the pair could have up to 1,000 megawatts of capacity, which is quite a large amount.

We’ve seen many similar initiatives to build solar power plants in China in response to Beijing incentives and directives, but this is one of the largest I can recall involving a foreign company. That’s significant because many Chinese builders have little experience in the sector, and may be taking their action more to please the central government than to earn actual profits. By comparison, this new partnership should be far more commercially focused, giving it better chances of success.

Finally there’s the Caixin investigative report, which saw a reporter review many companies’ latest financial statements and uncover how reliant some smaller automakers have become on Beijing incentives to develop new energy cars. (Chinese article) The report points out that many of the companies would be loss-making if they didn’t have the government support.

I’ve never heard of any of the companies named in the report, which reflects the fact that China’s auto industry is highly fragmented with dozens of small players that would never survive in a more mature market. Many of these companies probably should have closed or merged by now due to stiff competition. But they have discovered that Beijing’s largess can prolong their lives for a few more years, as they develop new energy cars that will probably never make it to market.

Doug Young has lived and worked in China for 20 years, much of that as a journalist, writing about publicly listed Chinese companies. He currently lives in Shanghai where, in addition to his role as editor of Young’s China Business Blog, he teaches financial journalism at Fudan University, one of China’s top journalism programs.. He writes daily on his blog, Young´s China Business Blog, commenting on the latest developments at Chinese companies listed in the US, China and Hong Kong. He is also author of a new book about the media in China, The Party Line: How The Media Dictates Public Opinion in Modern China.

The post Chinese Green Subsidies: When Lifting All Boats Becomes Bailing Them Out appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

by Debra Fiakas CFA

In the last post on Brightsource Energy and its Ivanpah solar thermal power plant in California, I offered no investment opportunity.  Brightsource’s colossal configuration of mirrors and boilers in the Mojave desert is not the first solar thermal power plant using the tower configuration.  The solar subsidiary of Spain’s power generator and transmission leader Abengoa S.A.(ABGB:  Nasdaq) was first to market with a commercial solar thermal tower power plant near Seville.

Since construction first started in 2004, Abengoa Solar has brought a series of solar thermal projects into operation.  The company has five solar thermal projects in Spain.  Abengoa partnered with Hassi-R’mel to build and operate an integrated solar combined-cycle plant in Algeria with a power output of 20 megawatts from a parabolic mirror and another 130 megawatts generated from fossil fuel.  Abengoa is in partnership Total, SA and Masdar in the operation of a 100 megawatt solar thermal power plant near Abu Dhabi.  In 2013, Abengoa went operational with a 280 megawatt installation near Gila Bend, Arizona in the U.S.  The Gila Bend plant relies on the largest parabolic trough in the world.

While NRG Energy may has some reticence about further solar thermal power investment, Abengoa is still moving full steam ahead.  The company has 150 megawatts under construction at two sites in South Africa.  At the beginning of this year the company announced plans to develop a 110 megawatt solar thermal power plant in Chile.  What is even more interesting is that Abengoa already building a 280 megawatt solar thermal power plant near Barstow, California just a few miles down Interstate 15 from the Ivanpah solar thermal power plant being operated by NRG Energy and Brightsource. 

Abengoa shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, making it enticingly easy to access this excellent Spanish company.  The stock appears dear considering reported earnings.  Yet the company earns a 7.3% operating profit and converts 11.7% of sales to operating cash flow.  Brightsource’s partner in Ivanpah and another operating utility, NRG Energy, earns about the same operating profit but only turns 8.7% of sales to cash.

Brightsource Energy plugged its Ivanpah plant into the electrical grid with some trepidation as the public questioned the economic viability of the plant.  Abengoa appears more confident in its designs and processes.  The corporate tone provides a clue for investors.

Debra Fiakas is the Managing Director of Crystal Equity Research, an alternative research resource on small capitalization companies in selected industries.

Neither the author of the Small Cap Strategist web log, Crystal Equity Research nor its affiliates have a beneficial interest in the companies mentioned herein.

Image: Abengoa’s PS20 and PS10 in Andalusia, Spain . Photo by Koza1983.

The post Solar Conquistador appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

by Debra Fiakas CFA

Last week the Ivanpah solar thermal power plant in California went operational last week.  Ivanpah is a marvel.  Located in the Mojave Desert, the power plant generators are driven by steam like any other.  However, at Ivanpah the steam is created by acres of large mirrors that reflect and concentrate the desert sunlight onto water-filled boilers.  The boilers tower 150 feet above the mirrors that are spread across 3,500 acres. 

Ivanpah scale has required the cooperation of a number of players.  Brightsource Energy is running the show with the power plant owner NRG Energy (NRG:  NYSE).  Google (GOOG:  Nasdaq) is a ‘relatively’ silent third owner that sent a ‘relatively’ impressive check for $168 million.  It is has taken big players like NRG and Google to get Ivanpah up and running.  The project has run up a tab close to $2.2 billion.

Brightsource has backing from France’s Alstom S.A. and a gaggle of big name venture capital firms such as VantagePoint Capital Partners.  Interestingly, oil and gas players also have their hand in solar thermal project through their venture arms Chevron Technology Partners and BP Ventures.  Brightsource and its two partners have amped up their own investment in the Ivanpah project with a $1.6 billion loan guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The verdict is still out on the economic viability of Ivanpah.  Much has changed over the five years the project has been in development and construction.  Power produced from cheap natural gas is casting a long shadow across alternative energy sources of all stripes.  Ivanpah’s three generating units have the capacity to produce 400 megawatts.  That means it is cost $5,500,000 per megawatt to build Ivanpah.  Thus the projects staggering cost puts the plant at a disadvantage compared to natural gas fired power plants or even nuclear projects.  A natural gas power plant costs around $1,000,000 per megawatt and a nuclear power plant costs a bit more at $1,100,000 per megawatt. Ed. note: the price of a nuclear plant seems low; the EIA puts a new nuclear plant cost at $5,530,000 per MW. The other prices are in-line]

Last week Brightsource Energy’s management put on a happy face for the Ivanpah debut.  They are certain once the project has proven out the phone will be ringing with parties interested in thermal solar power.  Just the same, we know NRG Energy is right in the thick of things at Ivanpah and yet has put a moratorium on additional solar thermal power investments.

In my view, there is no investment to be made here.  Shares of Google and NRG Energy reflect their principle businesses and not the Ivanpah project.  Brightsource Energy is a private company.  Even if it were to raise new capital, few of us would get a seat at the table with venture capital firms like VantagePoint.  However, it is worthwhile watching how this thermal solar plant plays out.  It will take a variety of power sources to replace fossil fuel.  Which ones have sustainability is yet to be proven.

Debra Fiakas is the Managing Director of Crystal Equity Research, an alternative research resource on small capitalization companies in selected industries.

Neither the author of the Small Cap Strategist web log, Crystal Equity Research nor its affiliates have a beneficial interest in the companies mentioned herein.

The post Mirrors in the Mojave appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Tom Konrad CFA

The falling price of photovoltaic (PV) solar is undermining the case for Concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSP). 

According to a recent report from Pike Research, of the 6886 MW of CSP projects awarded in the United States since 2004, 36% have been replaced with PV.  That’s more than the number which are actually under construction (1,532 MW, or 21% of announced projects), and all of those required the backing of the US DOE loan guarantee program.

With this recent track record, and no prospect for new approvals under the program since September 30th, it seems likely that less than half of 3400 MW of projects in the pipeline will actually be built as CSP projects.  In the worst-case scenario for CSP, DOE loan guarantees will prove to have been essential, and the entire CSP pipeline vanish or be replaced by PV.

It Wasn’t Supposed to be This Way

Many renewable energy advocates (myself included) have long seen CSP as core to the decarbonization of the electric grid.  That’s because CSP has something relatively unique among renewable power technologies: with the addition of relatively inexpensive thermal storage, it can be dispatchable.  Dispatchable power, usually provided by natural gas turbines on the current electric grid, is what allows utilities to match supply and demand.  The addition of variable sources of supply such as PV and wind only makes dispatchable resources more important.

CSP held the promise of squaring the circle: scalable, potentially inexpensive, dispatchable zero-carbon power.  Even PV advocates such as Ken Zweibel, now head of the GW Solar Institute, but then the President of thin film PV start-up PrimeStar Solar co-authored a “Solar Grand Plan” for Scientific American which relied on CSP as a key component in his vision of a solar powered North America.

What Happened

The difference between the grand visions and today’s reality are legion.  First, as the Pike study points out,

The biggest threat to resumed growth in CSP is the dropping prices of PV modules. PV module prices continue to drop beyond 50% of their peak in mid-2008. In addition, the established track record of PV is more attractive to financial backers.

but the authors hold out hope that

CSP may overcome competition from PV by reducing costs as the result of bigger scale and two technology propositions that increase operating revenue and profits: hybridization with fossil fuel plants through a process called Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) and utility-sized energy storage capabilities.

I’m less sanguine.  I now see four other difficulties for CSP going forward:

1. Dispatchable carbon-free power may be essential to a carbon-free electric grid, but today we are at much lower penetrations. 
2. Dispatchable natural gas generation is widely available and cheap to operate with today’s low gas prices and the absence of any price on carbon. 
3. Dispatchable generation is most useful for balancing load if there is a robust transmission link between the generation and the load in question.  Since CSP requires direct sunlight and considerable land areas, it is confined to remote parts of the arid Southwest, typically far from population.  Given the difficulty and long time lines required to build new transmission in the US, CSP’s potential dispatchability remains limited. 
4. Smart grid technologies such as Demand Response (DR) are advancing rapidly, and are, in many cases, able to match demand to supply at much lower cost than CSP.  Lithium-Ion and Lead-Acid battery technologies are also angling for a slice of the grid stabilization pie, especially in conjunction with better load forecasting techniques.  While DR and batteries have difficulty matching CSP for cheap mass energy storage, they have a competitive advantage when it comes to supplying power for short term grid stabilization. 

Conclusion

As long as there is cheap natural gas available for long term storage, and smart grid techniques filling in the short term gaps, CSP’s high-energy thermal storage is a solution looking for a problem. This is especially true given that the “problem” (mismatch between supply and demand) occurs at the source of demand (population centers), not in the uninhabited desert where CSP plants are invariably located.

The Pike report forecasts that CSP construction will rebound by the end of the decade.  I’m not so sure.  Technologies improve and get cheaper as they are deployed.  With CSP deployment stalling, and smart grid and PV deployment accelerating, why should be assume that CSP will ever catch up?

If CSP development does stall, it will be a tragedy, because smart grid technologies will be less able to compensate for the variability of PV and wind as they reach high grid penetration.  At that point, mass energy storage such as that available with CSP will become essential, and if we have not been developing CSP technology along the way, mass energy storage may be much harder to implement than we would hope.

NOTE: This article was first published on Forbes.com. I also added some thoughts on what it might mean for electricity generation in general on my blog at Clean Energy Wonk.

The post Cheap Photovoltaics Are Eating Solar Thermal’s Lunch appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Dana Blankenhorn

If there is one thing I’ve learned as a tech reporter it is that failure is common, but what we learn from failure can often lead to greater success.

Back in 1984 I was asked to help write the manual for a start-up called The Promise. The Promise would offer home banking, home shopping, and information services, delivered to your PC.

The Promise failed almost before the lights went out on the press conference. It was at least a dozen years too early. There was no Internet, and I worked on a double-floppy IBM PC.

Fortunately its owner knew how to make lemonade from lemons. Recognizing that his programmers had just created a general-purpose engine for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), he eventually turned that company into $6 billion.

Don’t confuse the fate of a company with that of a technology. Sometimes the technology is being applied in the wrong way. Sometimes the company is trying to run before it can walk.

That’s the important lesson in the Brightsource IPO. Brightsource is trying to go public because its private investors, including Google, can’t take it past its Ivanpah solar mirrors project, a $1.6 billion effort to build utility-grade solar technology using mirrors in the California desert.

The project is risky as all get out. There are lawsuits aimed at stopping it , there are questions over whether they can get the thing built, and how they’re going to maintain it.

It is, in tech parlance, a “moon shot.” High risk, high potential reward.

Personally I’m guessing FAIL. This is really old technology, it’s scaled beyond what makes sense, most of the management team has more gray hair than I do.

But it’s not my money, and in the end the fate of the company makes much less difference to the industry than analysts think. Solar power doesn’t have to come from ginormous installations hundreds of miles away. Projects don’t have to be utility-scale in order to work. Brightsource is building the tech equivalent of a Cray 1 computer  – it’s interesting, and it might work, but in the end it’s a niche product, and there are other ways of doing the same thing.

None of that means I’m rooting against Brightsource. If they’re able to make a business with solar mirrors, that’s great. But the credibility of the industry is not on the line here. And the lessons being learned in the attempt could prove invaluable down the road, both to the people running Brightsource and the rest of us.

Dana Blankenhorn first covered the energy industries in 1978 with the Houston Business Journal. He returned last month after a short 29 year hiatus because it’s the best business story of our time. In between he covered PCs, the Internet, e-commerce, open source, the Internet of Things and Moore’s Law. It’s the application of the last to harvesting the energy all around us he’s most excited about. He lives in Atlanta.

The post Brightsource: New Tech is Filled With Failure appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

The article first published at this URL was originally attributed to Dana Blankenhorn by my mistake. It was in fact written by Katie Fehrenbacher, Editor at GigaOM and Earth2Tech. You can find the original article here: http://gigaom.com/cleantech/brightsource-energys-s-1-by-the-numbers/.

The article I had intended to publish is here: http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2011/04/brightsource_new_tech_is_filled_with_failure.html

My apologies, Tom Konrad, Editor, AltenergyStocks.

The post The Brightsource IPO: By the Numbers appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Dana Blankenhorn

This article is no longer available.

Disclosure: None

Dana Blankenhorn first covered the energy industries in 1978 with the Houston Business Journal. He returned last month after a short 29 year hiatus because it’s the best business story of our time. In between he covered PCs, the Internet, e-commerce, open source, the Internet of Things and Moore’s Law. It’s the application of the last to harvesting the energy all around us he’s most excited about. He lives in Atlanta.

The post Solar Tracer at the Penny Stock Arcade appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.