Now there are signs that some solar stocks may be turning back around. One of the most important of those isSunrun(ticker: RUN), a solar developer and installer based in California. Sunrun shares rose 7.9% on Friday after the company beat revenue expectations and gave a bullish outlook for 2021 in its fourth-quarter earnings report on Thursday. Sunrun, which already has more than 550,000 customers and is the largest installer in the U.S., expects to add 20% to 25% more capacity this year, implying it will add more than 10% as many megawatts of capacity as it did in 2020. With a stormdisrupting the electrical grid in Texasand other states last week, CFO Tom vonReichbauer believes that more consumers will start considering solar power paired with battery storage as an alternative. That way they can rely less on the traditional electric grid or potentially disconnect entirely. In the days after that storm, traffic to Sunrun’s website spiked 350%, vonReichbauer said in an interview withBarron’son Friday. “I think the moment feels very right,” he said. “I mean, there’s never been a better time for decarbonization. Things like Texas continue to prove just how old and frail and unreliable the legacy grid is. We’re not waiting on some science experiment” to solve them. “We have the solutions today–solar plus storage.” Sunrun continues to lose money under traditional accounting metrics because of its business model. Most customers don’t buy panels upfront–they sign a long-term lease or subscribe, as the company puts it. So Sunrun books the cost of installing the panels immediately but gets paid for those panels over a period of decades. One way to consider its financials is to look at the net long-term value of each customer based on expected future payments. Sunrun says each customer is worth about $9,000, up from $7,000in the first quarter. (The company changed its accounting for customer value over the year, and it would be closer to $8,500 today under the old method.) Margins are rising for various reasons, including because the prices of solar panels and equipment continues to fall. vonReichbauer said that Sunrun is expanding in Texas and Florida this year, but still sees enormous growth potential in current markets like California. “You look at a place like California, one of the largest markets for solar, and penetration there is still in the low to mid teens,” he said. “And there’s no reason that over a long period of time that won’t look more like Hawaii, where you’re up in the 30s, maybe pushing a 40% penetration rate.”
Beam Global, formerly Envision Solar, is a CleanTech leader that produces patented infrastructure products for the electrification of transportation. Based in San Diego California, Beam produces sustainable Made in America products for electric vehicle charging, outdoor media and energy security. Beam is publicly traded on Nasdaq under the ticker symbols BEEM and BEEMW.
Speaking of special truck lanes.... Imagine the interstates equipped with inductive charging pads that when driven over, your time in that lane will be billed to your 'account'.
See I told ya, bet on the Swedes. -------------------------- Initial tests of in-road charging for electric trucks on a stretch of Swedish road have been successful, according to project managers. The scope of testing will now increase, encompassing more vehicles, additional stretches of road, and higher speeds. The project, dubbed "Smartroad Gotland" got underway in November 2019 with the installation of inductive charging equipment on a stretch of road between an airport and the town of Visby, on the Swedish island of Gotland. The charging system consists of rubber-wrapped copper coils buried a little more than 3 inches deep, connected to the grid. Vehicles are equipped with receivers that allow them to draw current. Sourced from Israeli firm ElecReon, the system is designed to be scalable. Coils can be embedded in longer stretches of road if needed, and vehicles can be equipped with multiple receivers (the truck used for testing had five of them). Testing took place over a week and a half in winter conditions, with snow and rain, according to Smartroad Gotland. The truck was able to charge both while stationary and while driving over a 164-foot section of road at speeds up to 18 mph. The system was able to charge the truck at a rate of 45 kilowatts, according to Smartroad Gotland. Smartroad Gotland Over the coming months, Smartroad Gotland said it plans to test at "highway speed" with an increased charging rate 125 kw. More stretches of road will be added as well, along with an electric airport shuttle bus. Wireless charging of a moving vehicle has been accomplished before, but not on public roads. In 2017, Renault and Qualcomm charged a car at 60 mph on a test track. Qualcomm subsequently sold its wireless charging patents to startup WiTricity. Wireless charging is more convenient than plugging in, but systems currently available have struggled to match the efficiency of conventional cables. In 2019, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory managed to wirelessly transfer 120 kw of power with 97% efficiency, but it's unclear if those results can be replicated in a commercial application.
"There is no quick remedy for tight supply conditions, though we do see bottlenecks beginning to ease by Q3," Morgan Stanley analyst Craig Hettenbach said in a note to clients Tuesday. Semiconductor stocks with high exposure to the automotive industry should benefit from improved pricing near-term, but the chip shortages will cap revenue upside. Major chipmakers for the auto industry includeNXP Semiconductors(NXPI),ON Semiconductor(ON),TEConnectivity(TEL) and Sensata Technologies(ST). The chip shortages are mainly due to capacity constraints at foundries such asTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing(TSM).
The funny thing about those ground charging rails is when you unpack the toy and remove the various twist ties you rip the part that electrifies the whole set up!! I have two of these in my basement ruined! Makes for an angry Christmas!
WiTricity. (from the above article) https://witricity.com/ Pretty cool. SPAC em Stoney. Is GMMY available for a ticker? “More than 2/3 of consumers in Germany planning to buy a car are more willing to purchase an EV if they could charge it wirelessly.” -J.D. Power Mobility Disruptor Study WiTricity Extends Recent Funding For A Total of $52M New Board of Advisors to help guide mass-market adoption of wireless EV charging Watertown, MA – February 23, 2021 – WiTricity, the company wirelessly charging the future of mobility, announced an additional $18 million to its previously announced October fund raise of $34 million for a total of $52 million. The extension included investments from Tony Fadell’s Future Shape and other private investors. Fadell also joins WiTricity’s newly formed Board of Advisors. Stage 1 Ventures led the first tranche of $34 million with participation from Air Waves Wireless Electricity and a strategic investment by Mitsubishi Corporation through its U.S. subsidiary, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas). As global automakers race to support both consumer and government-generated demand for zero-emissions vehicles, they are also developing wireless charging capabilities that will improve the owner experience. Many of the world’s top automakers and their Tier 1 suppliers have licensed WiTricity’s technology, including Toyota, Mahle, TDK, IHI, Shindengen, Daihen, Aptiv, Anjie Wireless, Yura, VIE, Green Power, and Lumen Freedom. The technology can already be seen in action with McLaren’s Speedtail Hyper-GT and the BMW 530e iPerformance. “With EVs we traded pumping gas with a dirty, heavy hose for pumping electrons with a dirty, heavy charging cable? That’s not revolutionary! Why can’t you just park anywhere—at home, at work, out shopping—and charge without plugging in?! WiTricity has created the global standard for high-efficiency wireless charging. WiTricity’s patented tech is being deployed worldwide in cars, buses, bikes, and robots,” said Tony Fadell, Principal at Future Shape. WiTricity’s technology enables a hands-free and efficient charging experience for EV drivers. The company envisions a not-too-distant future when dynamic charging will support moving vehicles (from taxi queues to roadways), and autonomous vehicles and robots will charge without human intervention. These advancements depend on WiTricity’s wireless power transfer innovation and patented magnetic resonance technology. New Board of Advisors As the company readies for the transition from technology and standards development to broad market adoption, WiTricity has secured advisory support from several of the world’s leading authorities on designing consumer experiences, building leading edge technology, and monetizing intellectual property. The new Advisory Board includes: Grant Covic, Professor of Engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where there are more than 40 Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers on campus working on wireless charging. Covic leads industrial and EV wireless power research efforts, is a pioneer in inductive power transfer, and actively collaborates in WiTricity research. Tony Fadell, Principal at Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm. Fadell is the founder and former CEO of Nest (acquired by Google), and former SVP of Apple’s iPod Division, where he led the development of the first 18 generations of the iPod and first three generations of the iPhone. Bill Merritt, President and CEO of InterDigital, the mobile and video technology research and development company. Merritt is an expert in intellectual property and leads one of the most successful technology licensing businesses of all time. Marin Soljačić, Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MacArthur Fellow and WiTricity founder. Soljačić and his team developed the foundational technology for wireless power transfer over distance via strongly-coupled magnetic resonators and founded WiTricity in 2007. Jack Watanabe, President of Climeon Japan, a clean energy company. Watanabe is a 36-year veteran of Mitsubishi Corporation, having last served as the chief strategist and SVP of Mitsubishi Energy Group. “These investments enable WiTricity to capitalize on the incredible commercial momentum for electric vehicle adoption globally. With the global standard set for EV wireless charging, and automaker launches imminent, wireless charging should become a primary feature of EVs coming to market in the next design cycle,” said Alex Gruzen, WiTricity CEO. “As you layer in the growing demand for autonomy in both transportation and industrial settings, wireless charging will become not just a convenience, but a key component of mobility. As we ready for mass-market adoption, we’re excited to bring on a Board of Advisors who bring important insights and opportunities to WiTricity.” About WiTricity WiTricity is the global industry leader in wireless charging, powering a sustainable future of mobility that is electric and autonomous. WiTricity’s patented magnetic resonance technology is being incorporated into global automakers’ and Tier 1 suppliers’ EV roadmaps and is the foundation of major global standards developed to support wide-scale adoption. Advancements like dynamic charging of moving vehicles, and the charging of autonomous robots and vehicles without human intervention all depend on WiTricity technology. See how WiTricity enables a magically simple, efficient charging experience. One comment on “WiTricity Extends Recent Funding For A Total of $52M”