It may be time to re-think J. Paul Getty’s famous formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil. For energy investors today, a more successful formula might revolve around renewable energy projects — particularly in emerging markets. Taken in aggregate, IRRs for renewable energy projects in the developing world are 28 percent higher than those in EU and North America.
Quantum Renewable Energy Inc. has figured out a way to use wind, solar and other types of renewable energy to generate power for clients in urban settings. The company builds rooftop power plants that not only produce the electricity needed by customers, but also excess power that can be sold back to a utility partner.
Solar and wind power are coming online at rates unforeseen only a few years ago. That’s a good thing if your goal is to decarbonize the energy sector. In places with abundant wind and solar resources, like Texas and California, the price of electricity is dipping more and more frequently into negative territory.
So how’s this for a benchmark: Sunday, 8 May, at 11am in the morning, 95 percent of Germany’s power demands were met by renewable energy sources. Quite an achievement for one of the most developed and industrialised nations in the world.
Unlike the fossil fuels that still provide the bulk of the U.S. power supply, solar panels generate electricity with no air or carbon pollution, no ash or other waste products, and no inputs other than sunlight. While the manufacturing of solar panels, like all other energy devices, involves emissions, PV electricity generation itself: generates no…