Two Australian Solar Farms For New Energy Solar
New Energy Solar has added the first two Australian solar farms to its portfolio of US solar assets, continuing its rapid growth since its IPO last December.
Read MoreVictor Bivell
New Strategy For Carnegie, Subsidiary For Tag Pacific
In an unexpected change of strategy, Carnegie Clean Energy is to merge its 2016 acquisition, Energy Made Clean, with ASX listed Tag Pacific. Carnegie will return to its former focus on commercializing its world leading wave energy technology. Tag Pacific and Energy Made Clean are both renewable and remote energy project developers and together will become a larger remote area energy specialist under the new name of MPower.
Read More11-Year High For Phoslock
In late July shares in Phoslock Water Solutions, soon to be Phoslock Environmental Technologies, reached an 11 year high of 46.5 cents. This is close to their all time high of 49.5 cents in February 2007. The shares listed in August 2002 at 20 cents, and in 2015 they were just above 2 cents, so it has been a long effort and the company has worked hard for the shares to recover and now, for the second time, to more than double their original value.
Read MoreGenex May Add Wind Power
With revenue ramping up and the development of its Kidman solar energy and longer term pumped hydro project tracking well, Genex Power now has an option to add a wind farm to the project.
Read MoreAugust Investments To Wind Up After 37 Years
August Investments Ltd, Australia’s longest running environmental and ethical investment vehicle, is now winding up after over 37 years of investing.
Read MoreNew Zealand Utilities Promote Electric Vehicles
Electrifying New Zealand’s transport sector makes a lot of commercial and environmental sense. As New Zealand’s grid has one of the world’s highest percentages of renewable energy, cars and transport vehicles account for a significant percentage of New Zealand’s carbon emissions. And with New Zealand’s electricity grid showing little growth in demand, it is not surprising that New Zealand’s utilities are prime promoters of electric cars.
Read MoreA Good Future For Manufactured Housing
The future of manufactured housing looks good with Ingenia Communities Group publishing a chart showing strong growth and outperformance in the US of manufactured housing compared to other commercial property sectors.
Read MoreRecord High for Orocobre
Orocobre’s shares reached an all time high of $7.44 in late January, having been only $2.60 last March. The run is well deserved given the time, capital and work it has taken for the company to begin lithium production at its salars in Argentina.
Read MoreMore Changes At Vmoto
Vmoto is one of those companies that has a great idea and products – electric scooters – but is taking a long time to commercialize them and still seems a long way from getting some serious traction.
Read MoreCleaner Focus For Gale Pacific
Gale Pacific has come a long way in its plan to become a focused technical fabrics company as it has now sold most of its non-core businesses. In the process it has improved its environmental focus.
Read MoreLarge Solar Energy IPO
Investors who want to back solar energy projects and project owners have another option with the IPO of New Energy Solar Ltd. The company listed on 4 December after raising $202 million. Its target was up to $200 million, so it did well. The offer price per stapled security was an indicative range of $1.45 to $1.55, and they were issued at $1.50.
Read MoreMore Light On Beacon Solar
So far retailer Beacon Lighting has given little information on how its small growth business, Beacon Solar, is going. This year there is a tad more information.
Read MoreTwo Steps Forward For Leaf
Leaf Resources has taken two more steps towards commercializing its Glycell technology that can produce lignin and glycerol from waste biomass. It has signed an exclusive agency agreement with HB International, one of the largest glycerol brokers in the world, for the supply of raw glycerol and the sale of refined glycerol. The second step is entering the biodegradable packaging market, which offers short term revenue while it develops its major plant in Malaysia.
Read MoreTechnology Advance for Batteries
Graphite mine developer Kibaran Resources said it has made a major breakthrough in the production of battery-grade graphite using a new environmentally-friendly process that eliminates the use of toxic chemicals.
Read MoreChange of Focus at Algae.Tec
Micro caps often have several irons in the fire and don’t find their main business activity until one of the irons heats us. This looks like it may be happening at Algae.Tec, which has now begun to refer to itself as a “plant-based health & wellbeing company”. The company began life on the ASX trying to commercialize a technology that could grow and turn carbon-consuming algae into biofuel. While this commercialization activity is still in process in India, the company now refers to its biofuels and solar activities as “non-core assets that present additional upside and optionality”.
Read MoreNovel Aquaculture Feedstocks Address Protein Issue
The good news for aquaculture investors is that Australia is one of only a few developed countries that is perfectly suited for aquaculture, and novel alternatives using bacteria and insects have begun to appear to replace contentious animal proteins in fish food, said a visiting global aquaculture expert.
Read MoreMeridian Energy Looks for Growth Options
With the New Zealand electricity market experiencing flat demand over the past five years, utility company Meridian Energy is looking at a number of strategies to grow its sales. All of these focus on its commitment to being a sustainable business that generates only renewable energy, mostly hydro with some wind energy in both New Zealand and Australia.
Read MoreFirst Commercial Graphene Facility
Here’s one for the technology punters. First Graphite has received approval from the WA Department of Environment Regulation for the construction of a graphene production facility at the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson near Perth. This will be operational in the fourth quarter of this year. First Graphite said it will be the first ASX-listed company to have a commercial graphene production capability.
Read MoreRedflow Raising Leaves Out Retail Investors
Battery maker Redflow is raising up to $14.5 million at a very low 10 cents per share, but the offer is not available to its retail investors. The shares were trading at 16 cents before the capital raising, and the last time they were 10 cents was three years ago.
Read MorePacific Energy Tracking Well
In May Pacific Energy’s share price touched 76.5 cents, and in February it touched 77 cents – only half a cent off its all time high. The point however is that the all time high was in November 1999, nearly 18 years ago.
Read MoreInvesting In Solar Is Becoming Easier
Although the installation of residential solar energy systems has been strong around Australia for several years and the numbers of commercial solar projects and utility scale solar farms are now also growing, until now investors have not had access to these as the growth was not reflected on the ASX. While there is still a lack of exposure to the residential installation market, new options have emerged for commercial scale and utility scale projects. But the improving situation is for speculative investors only, not yet dividend investors.
Read MoreReNu Energy Steps Up Solar Focus
Having recently added solar energy as a key area of focus for its business, ReNu Energy has moved quickly to build its solar assets with two developments: an agreement to own and operate solar energy systems at four shopping centres, and an alliance with a solar projects developer and the purchase of its first solar project.
Read MoreAustralia Contributes To Metro Glass Profit
Australian Glass Group, which New Zealand’s Metro Performance Glass acquired last September, has contributed to Metro Glass’ strong revenue growth and net profit.
Read MoreCleaning China’s Water
China has a lot of dirty water, says the chairman of Phoslock Water Solutions, Laurence Freedman. And there is a lot of pressure to clean it, said Zhang Zhigang, the general manager of Beijing BHZQ Environmental Engineering Technology Company (BHZQ). BHZQ is Phoslock’s new Chinese partner in cleaning some of this water.
Read MoreEnviroSuite Sells Consulting Business
EnviroSuite is selling its Pacific Environment Consulting practice to focus on its environmental monitoring and management services. The sale is a big move that dramatically changes EnviroSuite’s business.
Read MoreDuxton Water Fully Invested
Duxton Water has fully committed the capital it raised in last year’s IPO. The company invests in water entitlements in southeast Australia. At 31 March it had invested $63 million or 94 per cent of its portfolio. It has entered into contracts, agreed terms for contracts, or has offers pending for another $4.4 million of water entitlements. When complete, these will make its portfolio fully invested.
Read MoreCobalt And The Battery Boom
The unfolding energy storage boom is a long way from slowing down and has grown from lithium to other battery metals such as cobalt. The demand for cobalt is projected to grow strongly for years to come and prices for the metal have more than doubled in the last two years – from US$10 to US$25 per pound or about US$55,000 per tonne, an eight year high. All this has prompted a boom in listed cobalt stocks through IPOs and other mineral companies dusting off and polishing up their old cobalt resources.
Read MoreWorld Solar Record for Dyesol
Solar energy hopeful Dyesol has been around for many years, in part because its technology and commercialization plan are so ambitious and, more importantly, because it continues to make progress. The latest news is that its partner Solliance has achieved a world record for perovskite solar cell photovoltaic (PV) technology on a flexible roll-to-roll process that can be used industrially. The record was 12.6 per cent conversion efficiency at the solar cell level.
Read MoreNew Wind Farm for Infigen
Infigen Energy is to build the 113.2 MW Bodangora wind farm near Wellington in New South Wales, its first new wind farm in many years. The company has launched an underwritten capital raising of $151 million to pay for the equity component of the project and also to possibly refinance its Global Facility and Woodlawn Project Finance Facility. The institutional entitlement offer and the retail entitlement offer are at 89 cents per security.
Read MoreSecos Targets Profitability
Biodegradable and compostable plastics maker Secos Group says it is getting closer to achieving group profitability now that two of its three business units are operating profitably.
Last month Secos said its Malaysian operations have traded profitably so far this financial year and its Australian operations are trading profitably on a monthly run rate basis. The company’s Chinese business unit is now being reviewed so the group can become cashflow positive.
A Growing Laboratory Services Business
HRL Holdings has been growing its environmental laboratory services business through acquisitions and has just closed a capital raising that targeted $8.5 million to pay for two more businesses. A placement raised $2.75 million, but shareholders were cautious and an entitlement offer raised only $0.69 million. Fortunately the offer was underwritten to $5 million so the total shortfall was only $0.77 million.
Read MoreAll Time High For Clean TeQ
Investors continue to like Clean TeQ’s commercialization story with the company’s shares more than doubling in less than two weeks to an all time high of $1.045 in early March. The high was despite an interim loss announced in mid February of $8.1 million. Revenue fell to a modest $325,000 and there was a $6.4 million cost for employee expenses of which $4.7 million was share based payments.
Read MoreGood Timing For Pumped Hydro
I’m a political junkie but watching Question Time on TV this week nearly cured me. Given the record heat and the blackouts and load shifting in South Australia and New South Wales, I thought the debate on energy policy might be useful. Silly me.
Read MoreCarnegie Now A Different Company
Carnegie Clean Energy is a different company from what it was as Carnegie Wave Energy and the difference is now reflected in its share price which in late January hit an eight year high of 8.8 cents. Only three months earlier in mid September it was 2.4 cents.
Read MoreHoliday Park Acquisitions for Aspen
With Australia in summer holidays mode, now may be a good time to give some thought to the holiday parks sector. There has been a roll-up underway in the fragmented industry for a few years now, with two listed stocks among the players buying up family owned holiday parks to create larger businesses with growing market capitalizations.
Read MoreFour Year High For Sims Metal
There is a very strong correlation between Sims Metal Management’s buy and sell prices and the prices of iron ore and coking coal, and ferrous prices on the London Metals Exchange, said Sims’ managing director and chief executive officer, Galdino Claro, at the company’s annual general meeting.
Read MoreTox Free Acquires Medical Waste Business
Hands up all those environmental investors who remember SteriHealth? The medical waste company was delisted in a privatization in 2014 but is now back on the radar as it has been acquired by Tox Free Solutions.
Read MoreNew Zealand Aquaculture Listing On ASX
The listed aquaculture sector has another player with New Zealand King Salmon Investments Ltd listing on the NZX and ASX on 18 October in a tightly held IPO backed by private equity.
Read MoreMore Progress for Ingenia
Property fund Ingenia Communities Group has furthered its growth strategy with the sale of the majority of its traditional retirement villages, as has been planned, and the acquisition of two more lifestyle parks using the funds from its June placement.
Read MoreSri Lanka Opportunity for Carnegie Wave Energy
Carnegie Wave Energy has added Sri Lanka to its growing list of potential island clients with a memorandum of understanding with Lanka Energy Conservation (Pvt) Ltd. The companies will identify opportunities and development paths for commercial wave energy plants and potential microgrids on Sri Lanka. They will look to integrate these into existing or new power infrastructure to supply both clean power and freshwater.
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