|
|
The World’s Biggest Alternative Energy Companies – 23 stocks with market capitalisations over $1 billionLike any new fast-growing industry on the stockmarket, investors can’t fail to notice that the alternative energy sector is dominated by microcap stocks, pink sheets and otc bb stocks. At AEI, we decided early on that we would not be showing these stocks. These tiny companies may not trade for days or even weeks at a time and represent for many an additional risk premium in an already speculative sector. Arguably, it’s far more useful for a risk-averse alternative energy investor to know which are the biggest alternative energy companies. That’s because with liquidity comes a much larger measure of security – it is reassuring to know you can always sell the stock at a low spread. It’s strange, but somehow the internet has amplified attention to these micro alternative energy stocks. Personally, I’m pretty fed-up with all the spam email I receive urging me to buy them or the number of cheap websites that seem only to exist to promote them. It annoys me because this is not a true picture of what is happening – there are many big players in this industry. So I decided it was time to go to the other extreme and determine just who are the biggest alternative energy companies on the planet today. After all, for investors, size does matter. Every single company below is capitalized at over $1 billion. The first 16 are pure-play alternative energy stocks. The remaining 7 are not e.g. Iberdrola, but I have as ever, left out massive blue chips such as GE whose wind turbine sales are still in the low single digit percentage range of the total business. All of the market capitalisation figures and the underlying exchange rates were taken from Friday 5th and Monday 8th January 2007. The AEI World Rankings of the 16 Biggest Pure-Play Alternative Energy Companies No. 1 Renewable Energy Corporation Sector: Solar Market Cap. $8.987 Billion Description: REC's business activities are organized in three divisions: REC Silicon, REC Wafer and REC Solar. REC Silicon covers the polysilicon activities; REC Wafer covers production of multicrystalline wafers and monocrystalline ingots, while REC Solar covers the downstream activities of producing and marketing cells and modules.
Description: CEMIG (Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais) distributes power to more than 5 million customers in the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, and generates most of its power from 36 hydro-electric plants. No. 3 Vestas Wind Systems Sector: Wind Market Cap. $7.466 Billion Description: Vestas’ core business comprises the development, manufacture, sale, marketing and maintenance of wind power systems. No. 4 Verbund Sector: Hydro Market Cap. $7.465 Billion Description: Verbund was until recently known as “Oesterreichische Elektrizitätswirtschaft-AG” or the Austrian Electricity Company. More than 80 % of Verbund’s hydro power capacity are bundled in its subsidiary VERBUND-Austrian Hydro Power AG (AHP). AHP generates almost 23 bn kWh per year, covering more than a third of Austria’s electricity consumption. The total capacity of its powerplants is 6,000 megawatt. AHP is the by far largest generator of electricity in Austria. No. 5 Gamesa Corp Sector: Wind Market Cap $6.710 Billion Description: Gamesa generates electric energy of renewable origin essentially based on the promotion and running of wind farms, the manufacture of wind turbines and the providing of services to the renewable energy sector. No. 6 Suntech Power Holdings Sector: Solar Market Cap. $4.984 Billion Description: Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. specializes in the design, development, manufacturing and sale of photovoltaic (PV) cells, modules and systems. No. 7 Solarworld AG Sector: Solar Market Cap. $3.563 Billion No. 8 Q-Cells AG Sector: Solar Market Cap. $3.355 Billion Description: The core business of Q-Cells AG is the development, production and sale of high-performance solar cells made of mono- and multicrystalline silicon. No. 9 Sunpower Sector: Solar Market Cap. $2.491 Billion Description: SunPower Corporation designs, manufactures and sells high efficiency solar cells and solar panels that generate electricity from sunlight for residential, commercial and remote power applications. Their proprietary all back contact silicon solar cell technology produces up to 50% more power per square foot compared to conventional solar cells. No. 10 First Solar Sector: Solar Market Cap. $1.953 Billion Description: First Solar is a thin film pv module manufacturer which are based on cadmium (not silicon) with a 9% efficiency rating - very high for thin film. They are the highest volume manufacturer of thin film solar technology. Although US-based, they have a strong presence in Germany. No. 11 Conergy AG Sector: Solar Market Cap. $1.847 Billion Description: The Group's principal activity is to develop, produce and sell system components relating to Solar Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal technologies. No. 12 Trustpower Sector: Hydro Market Cap. $1.661 Billion Description: TrustPower (sorry, no price-feed yet available from the New Zealand Stock Exchange) is New Zealand's fourth largest electricity retailer, and serves a quarter of a million customers throughout New Zealand. TrustPower owns and operates 34 power stations and produces electricity exclusively from renewable sources and TrustPower's power stations produce enough electricity for 260,000 Kiwi households. TrustPower is majority New Zealand owned and is listed on the New Zealand stock exchange. No. 13 Verasun Energy Corp Sector: Bioethanol Market Cap. $1.389 Billion Description: VeraSun Energy Corporation is the second largest ethanol producer in the U.S. based on production capacity, according to the RFA. It focuses primarily on the production and sales of ethanol and its co-products. No. 14 Ormat Technologies Sector: Geothermal Market Cap. $1.350 Billion Description: Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a vertically integrated company primarily engaged in the geothermal and recovered energy power business. The Company designs, develops, builds, owns and operates geothermal power plants. It also designs, develops and builds, and plans to own and operate, recovered energy-based power plants. Additionally, the Company designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and recovered energy power units and other power generating equipment, and provides related services. No. 15 Energy Conversion Devices Sector: Solar Market Cap. $1.303 Billion Description: ECD Ovonics portfolio of alternative energy solutions includes Ovonic thin-film amorphous solar cells, modules, panels and systems for generating solar electric power; Ovonic NiMH batteries; Ovonic hydride storage materials capable of storing hydrogen in the solid state for use as a feedstock for fuel cells or internal combustion engines or as an enhancement or replacement for any type of hydrocarbon fuel; and Ovonic fuel cell technology.
Description: Nordex AG is a developer and manufacturer of wind turbines. Their products include the serial produced multi-megawatt wind turbines Nordex N90 and N80 as well as the powerful megawatt turbines Nordex S70 and Nordex S77 for onshore use. For the rapidly developing international markets they make a smaller unit, the N60. 7 Large caps and utilities with big alternative energy exposure As I mentioned earlier, there are also some very big companies that are not wholly exposed to alternative / renewable energy but nonetheless have an exposure worthy of investor’s attention. No. 1 Iberdrola SA – Sector: Diversified Alternative Energy – Market Cap. $38.202 Billion Description: Iberdrola is one of the leading private electric utilities worldwide, with its services, reaching 16 million customers -over nine million in Spain-, concentrated in generation, transmission, distribution and marketing of electricity and natural gas. Iberdrola is the largest renewable energy operator in the world. As of March 2006 it had installed capacity of 3914 Megawatts from renewable sources of which 3598 Megawatts come from wind power. IBERDROLA recently announced plans to build over 10,000 MW of renewable energy worldwide by the end of 2011. No. 2 Archer Daniels Midland – Sectors: Bioethanol and Biodiesel – Market Cap. $20.920 Billion Description: Archer Daniels Midland Company is one of the largest agricultural processors in the world. ADM processes crops to make food ingredients, animal feed ingredients, renewable fuels and naturally derived alternatives to industrial chemicals. No. 3 PG&E Corporation Sector: Hydro Market Cap. $15.687 Billion Description: PG&E Corporation is an energy-based holding company headquartered in San Francisco. It is the parent company of Pacific Gas and Electric Company. 20% of its electricity generating assets are large hydropower. No. 4 MEMC Electronic Materials Sector: Solar Market Cap. $8.960 Billion Description: MEMC is a leading global supplier of wafers to the semiconductor industry. Approx 10% of its sales (2006) are to the solar industry. No. 5 Sumitomo Titanium Corp Sector: Solar Market Cap. $3.958 Billion Description: Sumitomo Titanium Corporation's main products are titanium and silicon, the latter is a vital feedstock for the solar industry. No. 6 Avista Corp Sector: Hydro Market Cap. $1.220 Billion Description: Avista Corp. is an energy company involved in the production, transmission and distribution of energy as well as other energy-related businesses. As per the 2005 annual report, 54% of Avista's generating assets are hydroelectric plants. No. 7 Portland General Electric Sector: Hydro Market Cap. $1.686 Billion Description: Portland General Electric, headquartered in Portland, Ore., is a fully integrated electric utility that serves 791,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in Oregon. The company has eight hydroelectric plants amounting to 509 MW and four thermal plants for gas and coal with a capacity of 1,466 megawatts. Conclusion Who said this was a tiny industry? Together these companies have a combined capitalisation of $150 billion – about the same size as the individual GDP of a handful of Latin American countries. Obviously, if you subtract the 7 latter non – pure plays then it comes to just $60 billion. What does fascinate me is though how quickly some of these companies have made it past the $1 billion mark. Of the top 16, at least 6 of them only took the IPO route over the last 2 years. Namely; Renewable Energy Corp (REC) You’ve probably spotted the pattern – 5 of the 6 are solar stocks. But then there’s also astonishing global diversity in the world’s largest cap. Alternative energy stocks. REC – the world’s biggest pure play – is based in Norway, Verbund is in Austria, Cemig is in Brazil, Suntech Power is in China and several are in Germany. Years ago, no one would have thought this possible. Yet the alternative energy story is not all high-tech. Hydropower – a technology well over a century old – features highly in the portfolios of many world utilities. In the case of New Zealand’s Trustpower – it is just about 100%. Hydropower will continue to have a major role because the lifespan of the plant – barring refurbishment- can be up to 200 years. It seems quite likely that 2007 should see a few more companies breaching the $1 billion ceiling whether by IPO or rising stock values. Long-term worries over hydrocarbon shortages and energy security can only work in their favour. AEI will be keeping a close eye on them all, so subscribe to our newsfeed ! 2 CommentsLeave a comment |
Powered by Movable Type Publishing Platform
We are in process of starting a solar energy company,how much can these companies provide us technology
The land for sale in Egypt than 33000 acres of land required fruitful final 750.000.000 dollars and is negotiable to inquire : gomanje2002@yahoo.com