Green incentive plans, technology breakthroughs and rising consumer adoption are giving a massive boost to the energy transition and to our electric future, with the stated goal to get to a carbon-free world in 2050.
Renewable energies, that have reached grid parity, become dominant in new power generation and are expected over coming decades to account for 48% of the power mix and 64% when including hydropower.
But as they are by nature intermittent, energy storage becomes a key element of the power puzzle.
Hydrogen, which offers high energy density and can be 100% clean, is particularly well suited to store energy from renewables. But it’s not only about utility-scale storage, hydrogen can also be used in many applications that are hard to electrify with batteries: long-range transport (buses, trucks, ships…), energy-intensive industries…
Various government initiatives across the world are likely to accelerate adoption of hydrogen and hence put it on a secular growth path. If incentives will be important, potential government restrictions about internal combustion engines in certain regions or diesel generators for large-scale backup power systems will also have a major role to play in hydrogen’s widespread adoption.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are also a cornerstone of our electric future. Performances of batteries are improving fast thanks to new materials, smart sensors and integrated computing capabilities while new features such as autonomous driving are about to revolutionize the driving experience.
Electric mobility adoption will greatly benefit from these performance leaps and government incentives with EVs’ total cost of ownership expected to stand below that of internal combustion engine vehicles in a near future.
Just like solar names, hydrogen stocks have not been spared by the funding concerns that emerged in the wake of the banking crisis a couple of months ago, as most hydrogen projects require tens or even hundreds of million dollars financing. But recent newsflow has been reassuring, with Plug Power reaffirming in recent days its…
With aviation responsible for close to 3% of global CO2 emissions and other transportation modes gradually making their green and electric transition, there has been increasing pressure on the airline industry to reduce its carbon footprint. Given that aircrafts can be in service for decades, blending fossil jet fuel with biofuels (or SAF, for Sustainable…
There has been a lot of discussion and speculation in recent weeks about the impact of the new net energy metering policy (NEM 3.0) that passed in December in California and that regulates the rates at which solar owners are compensated for the excess electricity they push into the grid. California indeed accounts for a…
Back in June, we made a deep dive into nuclear fusion, explaining that fusion is based on the idea that energy can be released by forcing atomic nuclei together rather than separating them, basically the opposite reaction of fission. Our sun for instance is generating power through a hyperscale fusion reaction. But on Earth, this…
Range anxiety, or the fear of running out of power without being able to find a charging point on time to replenish the battery, has been one of the major psychological barriers to large-scale public adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). We believe that this adoption blockage will soon be lifted due to significant improvements on…
Solar energy in the US has benefited over the years from a highly supportive tax policy, consumers’ pursuit of clean energy and sharply declining costs, leading residential solar installations to reach an expected record in 2022 according to BloombergNEF. As an illustration, residential photovoltaic installers delivered impressive revenue growth in their latest quarter with Sunrun…
Yesterday was a big day for hydrogen pure players Plug Power, Bloom Energy and Ballard. Amid general concerns over their corporate customers’ capex plans and cost inflation, they managed to deliver decent quarterly figures (albeit slightly below expectations), allowing investors to look beyond a messy short term and to focus on the long-term growth opportunity…
In a surprise move, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who had walked away from discussions with his own party two weeks ago about the US climate spending package, announced he will support in the Senate a $739 billion package, called the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at supporting alternative energies and lowering healthcare costs. Even if the overall…
Amid the current energy crisis, nuclear power is making a come-back despite ongoing nuclear waste issues. The idea has gained acceptance as nuclear energy is increasingly considered essential for combating climate change, following the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) incorporating nuclear in their models and estimates for a…
While Europe reconsiders its energy sourcing options amidst the Russia-Ukraine war, which triggers oil import restrictions, alternatives are scarce to alleviate the supply dip. In that context, France and the UK already backed out on their prior plans to gradually diminish nuclear fission power reliance, the former announcing six new reactors in February, the latter…
Talking about cleantech, and more specifically about inverters which are tightly linked to solar panels, can appear quite “ambitious” given the ongoing investigation by the US Department of Commerce seeking to determine whether Chinese solar equipment producers circumvent existing tariffs and anti-dumping duties imposed on them by setting up export facilities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia…
Wind energy players Vestas and Siemens Gamesa and supplier TPI Composites have reported underwhelming earnings and cut guidance in recent quarters due to a combination of weak revenue momentum (flattish installations globally in 2021), cost inflation (steel and resins, logistics) and supply chain issues. And Covid-linked lockdowns in China are unlikely to help in the short-term.…
Electric vehicles’ (EVs) adoption has been all the rage in recent months with sales rocketing in most parts of the world. EVs also took the spotlight at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, confirming their central role in the ongoing energy transition. The three main components of an EV are its energy storage (a battery…
With crude oil currently hovering at around $120 a barrel, non-fossil energy sources and electric vehicles (EVs) are obviously back on investors’ radar. Sales of EVs around the world were already shooting to the roof before the Russia-Ukraine war (+115% in China and +39% in Europe in January, +72% in the US in Q4) and…
Cleantech stocks have been in the eye of the storm this year, with solar, wind and hydrogen pure players declining 20-40% on average notably as the US government’s push in favor of hydrogen and other clean energies in the Infrastructure bill was underwhelming (e.g. $9.5 billion for hydrogen). That said, it seems like Democrats have…
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released earlier this week the world’s first energy roadmap towards the 2050 net zero carbon goal set by an increasingly number of countries around the world. This very complete report (https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050) basically states that, in order to reach this ambitious target, massive deployment of all available clean energy technologies must…
Over the last couple of days, the cleantech industry has suffered from an uninspiring newsflow. First, three of California’s major utilities proposed to increase grid access fees and reduce compensation for consumers who install solar panels on their home rooftops, a move that would make solar economics less attractive for consumers. Second, hydrogen leader Plug…
What do high-end smartphones, state-of-the-art security cameras and next generation autonomous cars have in common? Answer: LiDARs, or Light Detection And Ranging, a sensing technology that uses lasers to measure reflected light to create a 3D image of whatever it’s focused on. The LiDAR technology, used in the military & aerospace segments since the early…
Hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power, our largest portfolio company, just announced a strategic partnership with SK Group, one of the leading South Korean conglomerates which owns various businesses in the energy industry. The partnership aims to accelerate hydrogen penetration in Korea and broader Asian markets and to leverage Plug Power’s fuel cell and electrolyzer…
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are all the rage right now, especially since Biden’s election victory and the recent stellar quarterly results from leading pure play EV manufacturers like Tesla in the US and XPeng and Li Auto in China. The upcoming electrification of all vehicles (cars, buses, trucks, forklifts…) keeps on attracting many startups with the…
If one needed fresh evidence that hydrogen technologies are commercially ready and on their way to profitability, Plug Power, our largest portfolio position, provided it last week as the fuel cell maker reported 80% revenue growth to $107m in Q3 and a 19% EBITDA margin, way above consensus expectations and already close to its 2024…
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Kepler – UBS / S&P A+
Inception Date
02.10.2020
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