Renewable Energy Share Discussion Threads

[supernumerary] 30/5/2016 10:59

Jog - sorry to hear that. I won't consider buying this type of share until I'm convinced they have a viable business model. Otherwise you're buying utility returns with an AIM risk profile. I see Flowgroup are suffering the same problem.

Meanwhile:



ASX Announcement

30 June 2016

UIL Limited Becomes Significant CWE Shareholder

Wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy Limited (ASX: CWE) is pleased to advise that global infrastructure investment company UIL Limited (formerly Utilico Limited) has acquired 100% of Renewable Energy Holdings PLC’s stake in CWE.

UIL Limited (formely Utilico investments Limited and Utilico Limited) has completed an acquisition of 101,330,192 shares in CWE from Renewable Energy Holdings PLC. The shares represent 5.07% of the total shares in CWE, making UIL the second largest shareholder in CWE. UIL has also agreed to a 12 month voluntary trading escrow, preventing sale of their shares for 12 months.

All documentation relating to the share acquisition has been completed and the share transfer has been processed today

[john of groats] 25/5/2016 22:21

Ah well; that's the second of my toes dipped in the renewable energy pool that have suffered frostbite. The main problem is that these are industries that are highly susceptible to changes of government policy which is as much influenced by the desire to placate particular electoral interest groups (e.g. greens v rural preservationists) as by hard scientific, engineering and economic expertise. These risks are very hard to evaluate. Compare Cameron's campaigning in 2010 with 2015.

John

[praipus] 04/4/2016 16:16

Thanks hedgehog100.

Sad day for all shareholders.

"Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" Shakespeare

[megafauna] 01/4/2016 13:47

What happens to CWEs shares now that REH is being liquidated?

Do they go to Utilico?

hxxp://renews.biz/102129/reh-to-be-liquidated/

[megafauna] 12/1/2016 03:53

John of Groats,

I would be keeping an eye on Lands End, well Hayle more specifically.

[john of groats] 07/1/2016 00:54

megafauna,

I hope you are right. I think CWE may eventually make good. Wave energy is certainly more reliable than wind and solar, at least until an economical method of storing surplus renewable energy on a large scale has been developed.

I don't spend much time studying CWE these days as my holding of shares via REH has probably been mortgaged to Utilico and is effectively worthless. Coincidentally, I was in Perth in September on my way to visit relations and friends across Australia. Unfortunately, there was no time to visit CWE as we had a lot of travelling to do in five weeks.

John

[megafauna] 31/12/2015 00:52

Thanks J of G, I am now thinking that CWE might be about to dual list.

The message I got from the roadshow presentation, was that the UK will be the centre of attention as far as the commercialisation of CETO 6 is concerned.

The collaboration with Bosch Rexroth for the power takeoff system (WavePod), WaveHub in Cornwall, signed agreements in the UK and Ireland, collaborations with universities in those countries as well, the size of the market,financial incentives, all point to the focus being over there.

CETO 6 is the single most important factor for the future development of CWE.

The UK is much better resourced to put the finishing touches on CETO 6 and WaveHub is ready and waiting for CETO 6 to plug in and play.

I expect the first CETO 6 to be deployed will be at Cornwall.

Microgrid development now seems to be the focus of CWE's attention back in Australia. Very soon they will be constructing a hybrid microgrid at Garden Island. A 2 MW solar array,battery storage and a new control system will be added to the Perth Wave Energy Project to demonstrate a microgrid for remote island and fringe of grid applications. The microgrid will be able to supply energy and freshwater without the need to be connected to the grid. Mauritius and the Seychelles have signed agreements for proposed projects. The Australian government has chipped in with $800,000 to get things started.

I think they will be chasing money from the Green Climate Fund for future microgrid projects in developing countries that rely on diesel generation for power.

I would not mind betting that other emission free power sources, (including wind), will feature in future developments.

I think CETO 6 will be added to the PWEP but not until 2017 or later.

Someone lower down the food chain will be in charge of these developments.

I think we will be hearing something very early in the new year about what will be happening in the UK.

[john of groats] 26/12/2015 01:41

megafauna,

Anent your post no. 2458, the reason for my original decision to invest in REH was its involvement in CETO. That involvement has diminished over the years as REH became more interested in wind than waves, ceased funding development of CETO, transferred ownership back to Carnegie in return for shares, sold some of those shares and then failed to partake in subsequent issues of shares by CWE.

I cannot see why Ottaviano would be willing to put effort or money into rescuing REH other than to make a deal to acquire their CWE shares. He would certainly not need to transfer permanently to the UK to negotiate that. Nor is that an urgent matter now Utilico has extended the loan. What puzzles me is why he needs to be so heavily involved with the UK project that he needs to be based there. Who is looking after CETO development in WA and projects elsewhere?

John

[hedgehog 100] 24/12/2015 14:24

24/12/2015 09:52 UKREG Renewable Energy Holdings plc Amendment of Loan and Loan Facility

"REH announces that on 22 December 2015 it agreed with Utilico to amend the maturity dates on its loan with Utilico Investments Limited ("Utilico"), originally dated 31 July 2009 and subsequently amended (the "2009 Loan"), and its loan facility with Utilico, originally entered into on 5 February 2014 and subsequently amended (the "Loan Facility") (together the "Outstanding Loans"). The maturity dates of the Outstanding Loans have been amended from 31 December 2015 to 31 March 2016 (the "Extension"). All other terms remain the same as previously announced. The amount drawn down at present from the Loan Facility of GBP4.25 million is GBP4.22 million and the 2009 Loan is fully drawn.

The purpose of the Extension is to allow time for the Company to lodge an application for a Judicial Review of the Secretary of State's decision, which disregarded the Planning Inspectorate's recommendation, and so refused consent to the Mynydd y Gwynt wind farm, as announced on 20 November 2015 (the "Rejection").

In parallel the directors of REH (the "Directors") are continuing discussions with Utilico, to determine whether the Company can and should remain trading in light of the Rejection. However the Directors believe that the Company is likely to commence insolvency proceedings in Q1 2016. The trading of the Company's shares on AIM remains suspended.

Utilico is interested in approximately 28.71 per cent of the issued share capital of REH and as such is considered a "Related Party" under the AIM Rules for Companies. The independent directors of the Company (Clive Callister and Alex Bush), having consulted with Strand Hanson Limited, consider the Amendments to be fair and reasonable insofar as shareholders are concerned.

Further announcements will be made in due course.

Enquiries:

Renewable Energy Holdings plc:
David Weir (Chairman)
Clive Callister (Chief Operating
Officer) [phone]

Strand Hanson Limited: [phone] "

[hedgehog 100] 19/12/2015 20:59

A prescient post from John of Groats three years ago.

Let's hope that he's right about the courts! -

John of Groats 17 Nov'12 - 13:59 - 1429 of 2462 0 0

"Hedgehog,

Good comment. The government, or at least the Conservative part of the coalition, has lost enthusiasm for on-shore wind farms. However, in the topsy turvy world we live in, the courts seem to have more power than the government. No doubt companies with wind farm planning applications in the pipeline will be considering judicial reviews if the policy is changed.

John"

[hedgehog 100] 16/12/2015 17:33

"Mynydd y Gwynt decision challenge?

Posted on 10 December, 2015 by Richard Wilson

Mynydd y Gwynt Ltd. have put in a pre-action letter for a judicial review challenging the Secretary of State’s decision to reject the windfarm."




There is a six week deadline from 20th November for Mynydd y Gwynt Ltd. to issue a claim form for judicial review of the Secretary of State's decision (i.e. 1st. January 2016):

"What happens next

A decision on the application for a development consent order for Mynydd y Gwynt Wind Farm was taken on 20 November 2015 and has now been issued.

The period for legal challenge is defined in s118 of the Planning Act 2008. Further information about legal challenge can be found in the letter sent to all interested parties accompanying the statement of reasons.

If you have any queries about the process please email the Planning Inspectorate at [e-mail] or telephone the helpdesk on 0303 444 5000."

[investopia] 02/12/2015 11:41

Strewth, mate!

[hedgehog 100] 01/12/2015 20:28

Oh dear, this is worrying:

"Climate Change Will Kill All The Hedgehogs!
OCTOBER 27, 2015
By Paul Homewood"


"Global Warming, our future

Tuesday, December 01, 2015

A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms

... BETWEEN FIVE AND SIX DEGREES OF WARMING

Although warming on this scale lies within the IPCC’s officially endorsed range of 21st-century possibilities, climate models have little to say about what Lynas, echoing Dante, describes as “the Sixth Circle of Hell”. To see the most recent climatic lookalike, we have to turn the geological clock back between 144m and 65m years, to the Cretaceous, which ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs. There was an even closer fit at the end of the Permian, 251m years ago, when global temperatures rose by – yes – six degrees, and 95% of species were wiped out.

That episode was the worst ever endured by life on Earth, the closest the planet has come to ending up a dead and desolate rock in space.” On land, the only winners were fungi that flourished on dying trees and shrubs. At sea there were only losers. Warm water is a killer. Less oxygen can dissolve, so conditions become stagnant and anoxic. Oxygen-breathing water-dwellers – all the higher forms of life from plankton to sharks – face suffocation. Warm water also expands, and sea levels rose by 20 metres.” The resulting “super-hurricanes” hitting the coasts would have triggered flash floods that no living thing could have survived.

There are aspects of the so-called “end-Permian extinction” that are unlikely to recur – most importantly, the vast volcanic eruption in Siberia that spread magma hundreds of metres thick over an area bigger than western Europe and shot billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. That is small comfort, however, for beneath the oceans, another monster stirred – the same that would bring a devastating end to the Palaeocene nearly 200m years later, and that still lies in wait today. Methane hydrate.

What happens when warming water releases pent-up gas from the sea bed: First, a small disturbance drives a gas-saturated parcel of water upwards. As it rises, bubbles begin to appear, as dissolved gas fizzles out with reducing pressure – just as a bottle of lemonade overflows if the top is taken off too quickly. These bubbles make the parcel of water still more buoyant, accelerating its rise through the water. As it surges upwards, reaching explosive force, it drags surrounding water up with it. At the surface, water is shot hundreds of metres into the air as the released gas blasts into the atmosphere. Shockwaves propagate outwards in all directions, triggering more eruptions nearby.

The eruption is more than just another positive feedback in the quickening process of global warming. Unlike CO2, methane is flammable. Even in air-methane concentrations as low as 5%, the mixture could ignite from lightning or some other spark and send fireballs tearing across the sky. The effect would be much like that of the fuel-air explosives used by the US and Russian armies – so-called “vacuum bombs” that ignite fuel droplets above a target. According to the CIA, those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringes are likely to suffer many internal injuries, including burst eardrums, severe concussion, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness.” Such tactical weapons, however, are squibs when set against methane-air clouds from oceanic eruptions. Scientists calculate that they could “destroy terrestrial life almost entirely (251m years ago, only one large land animal, the pig-like lystrosaurus, survived). It has been estimated that a large eruption in future could release energy equivalent to 108 megatonnes of TNT – 100,000 times more than the world’s entire stockpile of nuclear weapons. Not even Lynas, for all his scientific propriety, can avoid the Hollywood ending. “It is not too difficult to imagine the ultimate nightmare, with oceanic methane eruptions near large population centres wiping out billions of people – perhaps in days. Imagine a ‘fuel-air explosive’ fireball racing towards a city – London, say, or Tokyo – the blast wave spreading out from the explosive centre with the speed and force of an atomic bomb. Buildings are flattened, people are incinerated where they stand, or left blind and deaf by the force of the explosion. Mix Hiroshima with post-Katrina New Orleans to get some idea of what such a catastrophe might look like: burnt survivors battling over food, wandering far and wide from empty cities.

Then would come hydrogen sulphide from the stagnant oceans. “It would be a silent killer: imagine the scene at Bhopal following the Union Carbide gas release in 1984, replayed first at coastal settlements, then continental interiors across the world. At the same time, as the ozone layer came under assault, we would feel the sun’s rays burning into our skin, and the first cell mutations would be triggering outbreaks of cancer among anyone who survived. Dante’s hell was a place of judgment, where humanity was for ever punished for its sins. With all the remaining forests burning, and the corpses of people, livestock and wildlife piling up in every continent, the six-degree world would be a harsh penalty indeed for the mundane crime of burning fossil energy."

[praipus] 23/11/2015 10:13

Welcome and thanks for posting MF.

Sorry I can't answer any of your questions with fact so will leave it for someone with more knowledge than I to post.

Would be interested to hear your views on Australian Econom_y, Renewables and CETO when time allows you.

Cheers P

[megafauna] 22/11/2015 23:54

This is my first posting on this forum. I live in Australia and have held CWE shares for five or so years. I am interested to know what REH holders are thinking about the suspension of REH following the rejection of the wind farm and how this will impact on their company as well as on CWE.

Also, I am would like some opinion of the very rushed relocation of CWE's CEO Michael Ottaviano to the UK. When I say rushed, up until a day or so before the recent capital city roadshow tour, he was down as the presenter. On the day I went to the Brisbane roadshow we were informed that he would be permanently based in the UK within a week.

It is hard not to think that the relocation and the suspension of REH are not some how connected.

The reason we were given for his relocation is to oversee the deployment of Ceto 6 in the UK. That may be so, but so far Ceto 6 is still in the planning stage, so why the big rush?

I don't know a lot about REH other than what I have gleaned from my involvement with CWE. From what I can tell they own about 6% of CWE's shares, making them the second biggest shareholder behind Mike Fitzpatrick's company. I am familiar with how he picked up a huge bundle of CWE shares from REH at a fire sale price.

Is something similar about to happen with REH's remaining 6%?

Does anyone think that the relocation of the CEO might in some way be a rescue mission in order to allow REH to keep their head above water until they can benefit from the commercialisation of Ceto 6?

I would appreciate your input.

Cheers MF

[hedgehog 100] 21/11/2015 15:57

Darren,

I would think that they will at least seek a legal opinion on the merits of challenging this decision.

And if they do successfully challenge it, I would think that the legal costs of doing so should be reimbursed.

[darrenward] 20/11/2015 16:40

I agree, I think there are grounds to challenge as the SoS could have required a condition that dealt with mitigation of the red kite issue, especially as the Gov have issued new guidance on ecological impact that basically allows you to buy yourself out of a corner.

Also on an international level the legalities of refusing could be challenged as the Gov know they will not meet their CO2 obligation therefore have knowingly exacerbated the issue.

Go for it I say.

[hedgehog 100] 20/11/2015 16:25

The legal costs of trying to overturn the decision might not be that much to Utilico, compared to the potential worth of an approved development to them.

And with all the onshore wind farm applications being rejected, any which do succeed will have a scarcity value with energy companies looking to build their renewables capacity.

After all the time and money put into this already, it might be a shame to just throw in the towel at this stage.

[supernumerary] 20/11/2015 15:52

well, it's Utilico's money and therefore their decision. I doubt very much whether they'll want to throw more money at this - even if they got approval, they'd still have to get it connected.

[darrenward] 20/11/2015 14:27

They have grounds to appeal/challenge. It will cost more but I would rather my last few pence go in to fighting this very political and stupid decision.

[hedgehog 100] 20/11/2015 14:08

The Secretary of State’s Decision Letter of 20 November 2015 OVERRULED the recommendation of the Examining Authority (ExA) Philip Asquith, in his report dated 20 August 2015, who conducted the examination into the application.

Paragraph 6 of today's letter:-

"6. The ExA recommended that the Secretary of State grants development consent for the Development in the form set out in his report."

[hedgehog 100] 20/11/2015 13:51

"The Secretary of State has refused development consent for this application. For further information, please refer to the following decision documentation:

– Secretary of State’s Decision Letter
– Examining Authority’s Recommendation Report
– Habitats Regulations Assessment
– Post-examination correspondence
– Late responses to DECC’s consultation conducted 14 September 2015

20 November 2015"




Very disappointing, albeit that this was always a risky punt.

It looked a very appropriate development for the location, and important in helping to meet our renewables targets.
Was it I wonder rejected for political reasons?

Fortunately I had under a grand invested here, well under the sum I have made from REH previously, but a 100% loss of that is now on the cards (which would be my first for several years).

The main hope now is that REH will be refinanced to continue as a shell, after Utilico have taken its main assets.