There was some news yesterday on this https://renews.biz/60676/cop26-president-says-uk-will-emerge-with-a-green-recovery/
I donāt know if Motley Fool links are worth sharing? Their articles are usually clickbait that just promote joining their site/signing up to their mailing list.
Does anyone with more experience than me know if they are a reputable source for anything?
Iām all for renewable energy and would ideally hold around 15% in my investments. But I have developed a nagging worry about the take off of the sector and thatās that the big boys who have been making billions out of power supply for decades are watching and waiting. They have the power cash and ability to step in and replicate success rapidly. Its easy in this age to think of the likes of Shell and BP etc as lumbering dinosaurs but you know in reality they are sharp ruthless and determined.
I feel the same way about fintech vs the banking giants, Iām not sure what to do about it because Iām following my heart at the moment and baking the upstarts.
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Total just bought a massive share of SSE renewables, so they are waiting for the right moments
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Germanyās 130 billion euro ($145 billion) recovery budget puts the focus on climate-friendly industries and technologies, underscoring Chancellor Angela Merkelās pledge to reboot the economy and wean it off fossil power and cars that laid the foundation of the countryās export prowess.
Link to to the Total investment in SSE below:
SSE PLC on Wednesday said SSE Renewables has entered into an agreement to sell a 51% stake in its Seagreen 1 offshore wind farm project to Total SA for GBP70 million.
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Once we get access to European stocks, I think weāll have a lot more options to invest in green, responsible and forward-thinking companies.
In the meantime, Iām wondering if anybody knows if there are any UK / US companies, publicly traded (ideally on FT of course!) which are active in the energy storage space, virtual powerplants or demand side management?
Iām of the view that renewables will continue to grow and provide steady returns, the proven technologies and business models (wind, solar etc) are now fairly low risk. But the companies enabling the transition to a grid which is predominantly powered by renewables, thatās where some of the big growth opportunities are.
Once we get access to European stocks, I think weāll have a lot more options to invest in green, responsible and forward-thinking companies.
Amen to that! I think the EU countries are going to dominate the green sector - particularly the likes of Orsted and especially when Africa, S.America and E. Asia become key markets for wind power. If the UK government doesnāt get a move on then weāll be left behind as usual and will continue to beg foreign companies to build, maintain and own our energy infrastructure.
As for energy storage & virtual power plants, Tesla immediately springs to mind. If you havenāt read up on their project in Australia, itās very exciting. I think they have some small power balancing battery doo dah going on in the UK too.
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There are energy storage funds like Gresham House (UK market leader?) and Gore Street, but theyāre not on Freetrade and their ongoing costs are 1.8% or moreā¦ ouch.
Over the last decade, the price of electricity from large, utility-scale solar projects has dropped by a factor of at least 5. That 80% price decline has made building new solar cost-competitive with building new coal or gas power plants across most of the world.
Im not sure if im missing something (which im sure i am) but doesnāt the dropping of price become an issue for these companies and thus make them less likely to be profitable in the long run?
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Ah, one of the last faithful believers that live in a free market! 
I jestā¦ anywayā¦
Iād love to see renewables usher in a new era of ātoo cheap to meterā electricity, as nuclear promised in the 50s. As far as I know, generators get given price guarantees by the government for how much theyāll be paid per unit of electricity generated - so itās not really down to the free market and supply and demand to set the price. An 80% cut in the cost of deploying solar doesnāt unfortunately mean an 80% cut in consumer costs.
If you see the figure per kWh for power generated by Chinese financed/French onwed and operated Hinckley C then youād probably end up as annoyed as French revolutionaryā¦ (though granted nuclear is essential baseload but itās still such a bad deal that the government negotiated).
Maybe 10 or 15 years down the line weāll have a government that stops giving out high strike prices and allows electricity prices to plummet to the point of it being an affordable alternative to gas for home heating etc.
Again, this is my understanding of the matter and Iām happy to be corrected by anyone with industry knowledge!
Yes Hinckley is a joke to put it mildly.
I guess my question was more from an investing perspective - if govt allowed electricity prices to plummet then these business would be defunct (almost) if the prices keep dropping. I understand subsidising new technologies to allow them to get scale but long term that cant be the only mechanism they rely on. Maybe storage is the way to go . . .
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They should add a green subsection on Freetrade!
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Weāve asked several times 
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What a lovely surprise
I just work my way through Freetrade searching for words like wind, solar, energy, renewable, hydrogen, power, etc and adding anything promising to my watchlist.
Iām sure itās not a perfect method though.
That isnāt quite correct about guaranteed prices - it is true to a point for some renewable energy and low carbon (ie new nuclear) but not for gas/oil/coal etc.
There are a few different support schemes that work in different ways - some were guaranteed min prices eg Hinckley C and others were more market based eg the renewables obligation. But I havenāt really done much work on the UK energy market for the last few years so I havenāt kept up with what the latest support scheme is.
I did one in the other renewables thread
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It is down to the freemarket on the new offshore windfarm contracts. The government leases out the offshore land to the generator and agrees a megawatt hourly rate with the generator with acceptance of the lowest auction bid as long as the overall tender is compliant.
The agreed contract prices a few years ago were in the region of Ā£100 per MW/hr thatās now down to Ā£40MW/hr (This was below wholesale gas and coal mw/hr prices meaning the price is not subsidised) so in the last 10 years the price has more than halved. Also if the generator sells electricity to the wholesale market above there agreed MW/hr price the additional revenue is returned to consumers lowering the average electricity bill. The cost, complexity and risk in bringing these projects from initial feasibility to generators connected to the grid is costily and would not be economically viable on too cheap to meter basis.
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Iām amazed with the possibility
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