"The rise and fall of SunEdison (NYSE:SUNE) is one of the stranger stories in renewable energy recently..."

SunEdison (SUNE) has plummeted 71.4% in 3 months attributable to its purchases of renewable companies.

 LOL., snippets from today's Motley Fool on SUNE...

"One of the reasons investors loved SunEdison so much is the company's incredible growth spree. In the past year, it bought First Wind, a $2 billion portfolio of wind projects from Invenergy, and residential solar company Vivint Solar (NYSE: VSLR), among other smaller deals." 

"making money in renewable energy is harder than it seems"

"SunEdison is losing money like crazy"

How Predictable that SunEdison that loaded up on renewable LLCs, along with First Wind, would implode as SUNE?

Remember when SUNE was HOT? 

Forbes

June 20, 2015

'12 Energy Stocks The Richest Hedge Fund Billionaires Are Betting On Now'

Top Buy: SunEdison

"World's largest renewable-energy development firm bought seven portfolios in Asia, Africa and South America."

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fjlj45fmlj/top-buy-sunedison/

Now it's NOT 

SUNE has fallen 71.4% in the last three months

Motley Fool

September 27, 2015

Once a Hedge Fund Favorite, SunEdison Has a Long Climb Out of Its Current Hole


(A Clip- emphasis added in bold

except for this sentence):


How quickly the mighty have fallen. After becoming a favorite on Wall Street, SunEdison has proven that making money in renewable energy is harder than it seems.


"The rise and fall of SunEdison (NYSE:SUNE) is one of the stranger stories in renewable energy recently."

The rise and fall of SunEdison (NYSE:SUNE) is one of the stranger stories in renewable energy recently. Formerly known as MEMC Electronic Materials, SunEdison jettisoned its floundering semiconductor business after the solar industry collapsed in 2012 and made a big bet on building renewable energy projects.

Over the last few years, SunEdison has acquired wind companies and solar developers, and built its own organic growth business, growing until it became the world's biggest renewable energy developer. The company became a favorite of hedge fund billionaries, counting 10 such investors as of June 2015, according to Forbes.

But the stock has fallen 71.4% in the last three months, and investors have to be wondering what's going on -- and whether the company can recover.

Growth for the sake of growth


One of the reasons investors loved SunEdison so much is the company's incredible growth spree. In the past year, it bought First Wind, a $2 billion portfolio of wind projects from Invenergy, and residential solar company Vivint Solar (NYSE: VSLR), among other smaller deals.  

The deals made SunEdison a growth machine, as you can see from the company's own projections below.

There's only one problem. SunEdison is losing money like crazy as it's built this growth engine. Legacy losses from the semiconductor business, operating expenses, acquisition costs, and debt costs are eating into the company's finances.

continue reading:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/27/once-a-hedge-fund-...

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Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on September 30, 2015 at 12:39pm

SunEdisons (GLBL) Yieldco: UPDATE [not Terraform Power] (TERP)

Goldberg Law PC announces that it is investigating claims of potential misrepresentations by TerraForm Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:GLBL). The investigation focuses on whether the Company and its officers violated securities laws by issuing misleading information to investors. The investigation concerns whether the Company violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Specifically, the investigation will focus on whether the Company misled investors during the course of its initial public offering. Shares of the Company have fallen by nearly 50% since its initial public offering on August 4, 2015.

TerraForm Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:GLBL)’s stock on 28 September traded at beginning with a price of $7.91 and when day-trade ended the stock finally fell -10.31% to end at $7.13. TerraForm Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:GLBL)’s showed weekly performance of -17.76%.

LINK

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on September 29, 2015 at 4:57pm

The problem varies, due to sudden weather changes, peak demands as homes/business/industry ramp up usages. The non 24 hour operations of business and Industry create enormous spikes if not engineered to ramp up slowly, while the 24 hour operation is fairly predictable as a near constant load, both of electricity and fuels. A sudden 4 hour or less change in temps up or down in New England would show a big effect and generally comes with a similar change in wind.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525121/molten-salts-might-prov...
http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt-energy-storage
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/08/28/low-cost-molten-salt-energy-sto...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/ice-o...
http://energystorage.org/compressed-air-energy-storage-caes
http://energystorage.org/energy-storage

Though these technologies are approaching entry into the Storage sector of the electrical grid system, they too contain much in the way of CO² investment which adds to the already investment of CO² for the green energy production. The hidden CO² that no one seems to account for as we feel better about ourselves. 

Comment by Barbara Durkin on September 29, 2015 at 4:04pm

Spiking effect...intended or unintended?  Is this a problem that's engineered, or that is by design, I wonder.  Thank you, Eric, for your comprehensive explanations.    

Yurica writes:

On July 13, 1998, employees of one of the two power-marketing centers in California watched incredulously as the wholesale price of $1 a megawatt hour spiked to $9,999, stayed at that price for four hours, then dropped to a penny. Someone was testing the system to find the limits of market exploitation. [end of clip]

You mention the need for energy storage...we will be waiting a while...

Energy storage news out of MIT is that their new prototype battery AMBRI failed to deliver hoped for results. 

Now bankrupt is Xtreme, with Pat Wood is/was Director, of this molten battery company backed by Sail Capital that is Deval Patrick's former Secretary of Energy Ian Bowles, who, last check, was Director of First Wind. 

Bowles undersecretary, Giudice, jumped to AMBRI (molten battery storage, too)  favored in their policies by their energy market restructuring, 7 times.  This team was ADVISED by First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor on MA green policy.  By the regulations formed and implemented by MA Energy Secretary and undersecretary, citizens are encumbered by BILLIONS because project merit was Not the driver.  Thus, Deval Patrick's legacy is failing green companies spawned by his cronies, the only beneficiaries.  Citizens are on the hook again as  Xtreme has filed for Chapter 11, and AMBRI has just laid off 25% of their workforce because their MIT prototype failed. 

Hawaii Free Press
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/15912/Kahuk...

Sept 13, 2015

Kahuku Windfarm Batteries Fail Before They Are Installed
By Andrew Walden @ 2:28 PM :: 313 Views :: Energy
 
by Andrew Walden

Remember the Kahuku Windfarm Fires? 

After the third Kahuku Windfarm Fire, in August, 2012, burned the Kahuku battery storage facility to the ground over the course of three days, Kahuku developers FirstWind, now part of SunEdison, came up with a ‘bright’ new idea—batteries from Ambri Inc, that are already on fire because they are powered by molten magnesium and molten antimony. 

Ambri announced its ‘red hot’ scheme in November, 2013.  The Hawaii Energy Excelerator then wasted money ‘investing’ in Ambri, on the condition “that it must lead to an actual Hawaii-based project.”  Hawai’i Free Press mocked them for once again embracing a plan which was doomed to failure in a November, 2013 article: “Playing with Fire: Kahuku Windfarm to Install Molten Magnesium Batteries”.  Notably, Hawai’i Free Press also mocked the original Kahuku Windfarm battery plan when it was announced in November, 2010: “Xtreme Power: A Pig-in-a-poke For Hawaii Wind Farm.”

Now Ambri has crashed and burned—precisely as we predicted.  Here are the details from the Boston Globe, September 10, 2015:
Ambri Inc., an MIT spinout that has spent years creating efficient batteries that use liquid metal electrodes, will cut a quarter of its workforce because of developmental delays.
The company cut 14 workers as a result of the slowdown, according to an e-mail from Phil Giudice, Ambri’s chief executive. Despite promising results in tests over the past year, the company’s high-temperature seal for its liquid metal battery “did not perform sufficiently well” under tests conducted this summer.
“Ambri’s board and investors share our disappointment that progress has not happened more quickly or easily, but fully understands the accomplishments we have achieved, the challenges we face and Ambri‘s potential,” Giudice said. “The market opportunity for grid-scale energy storage is large, growing and global. Bringing new scientific discoveries in the physical sciences to commercial success is hard; the process is not entirely knowable or amenable to predictable timelines.”
Words to the wise: “Not entirely knowable.”  The unknowability of their success translates into the knowability of their failure.  Research does not equal production.
Kahuku has been back up and running with a DVAR voltage-smoothing system since February, 2014.  Will they now seek out a new battery scheme to funnel more Hawaii taxpayer dollars?
Take a walk down memory lane:
Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on September 29, 2015 at 2:28pm

This spiking effect happens when renewables are not available to carry the load. First it is seen in electrical (sometimes directly in the fuel market also) demand for heating or cooling, which is transferred mostly to the fast ramp-up facilities (ie. Oil Gas Bio) which creates a price increase based on demand. That price increase is then average back through the Electrical utilities and eventually leads to rate increases for the next PUC allotted permits. Electricity is a  "there or not there" power source. Only through Oil reserves, Hydro reserves can its ramp up or down be regulated. Coal is a slower process but better regulated than the "there / not there" of Solar or Wind.

Without storage systems in place (maybe soon to come) it can not compete in availability, only that it CAN exist with strictly limited provisions. Even then the CO² issue, still holds that the CO² is invested emissions during the processes of their creation. That which is not realized once and if these things produce. A Wind Farm that is expected to produce 28% but only produces at 20% during its life, just increased its carbon footprint nearly 20% in its construction, and (not calculated) probably by 50% in the fuel sector. 

Comment by Barbara Durkin on September 29, 2015 at 1:54pm

Thank you, Eric. 

Yurica provides, I added bold...

Ken Lay was a very useful and a very knowledgeable man to have around. He knew, for instance, of the holes in the California power market that could be exploited. He tried to warn officials about the problem in 1994 when Enron testified at a Public Utility Commission hearing. Unfortunately his advice was ignored. Enron then went with the flow. It reversed itself, endorsed the system, and lauded the politicians for setting up what Enron knew was an exploitable and faulty infrastructure.

[cut] I Googled:  1994 when Enron testified at a Public Utility Commission hearing...

and found something interesting. 

http://ferclitigation.com/wp-content/uploads/Tabors-CV.pdf

I've not located the testimony, but have a possible reference to it, page 19, Source-Charles River Associates' paper.  They've been a Deval Patrick administration Go To, which indicates bias in favor of what consistently fails to serve public interest.  Patrick's legacy is public debt delivered by crony capitalists traveling through revolving doors driven by public welfare and greed.  Evergreen Solar, A123 Systems, Beacon Power, Konarka Technologies bankruptcies have left on on the hook for millions fast approaching billions. 

From this link, downloaded, see pg. 19:  http://ferclitigation.com/wp-content/uploads/Tabors-CV.pdf

clip-

Testimony before the California Public Utility Commission en banc hearings on industry restructuring, September, 1994 sponsored by Enron Capital and Trade Resources.
Testimony before the Massachusetts Public Utility Commission hearings on industry restructuring.  April, 1995 sponsored by Enron Capital and Trade Resources
Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on September 29, 2015 at 12:07pm

Yes that was the report, Yurica's

Comment by Barbara Durkin on September 29, 2015 at 12:00pm

Interesting, Eric.  This is the situation in ME, below observed by Yurica?  Thank you for this information that doesn't surprise me.  Enron CEO Ken Lay's key policy adviser was Robert Bradley, Jr., who's blowing the whistle on wind, the Enron business model.  Bradley contends wind benefits are a "Myth".  Who can argue against this 16 year Enron insider's whistle-blowing disclosures that drew the ire of his boss, Ken Lay, and other chief Enron execs?      

As the late, great Yogi Berra famously said, “it’s déjà vu all over again.”

I think you're reference is specifically to this clip of Yurica's Report, thank you for securing this document/Report-

http://www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm

By Katherine Yurica

This story begins with the California energy crisis, which started in 2000 and continued through the early months of 2001, when electricity prices spiked to their highest levels. Prices went from $12 per megawatt hour in 1998 to $200 in December 2000 to $250 in January 2001, and at times a megawatt cost $1,000.

One event occurred earlier. On July 13, 1998, employees of one of the two power-marketing centers in California watched incredulously as the wholesale price of $1 a megawatt hour spiked to $9,999, stayed at that price for four hours, then dropped to a penny. Someone was testing the system to find the limits of market exploitation. This incident was the earliest indication that the people and the state could become victims of fraud. The Sacramento Bee broke the story three years later, on May 6, 2001.

Today, Californians are still paying the costs of the debacle while according to state officials the power companies who manipulated the energy markets reaped more than $7.5 billion in unfair profits.

 {cut] cont. reading by link above. 

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on September 28, 2015 at 4:50pm

The first should be downloadable as a PDF of that link, the second is a viewable version. Both are in archives should this article vanish, as some tend to do.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zB9xNV1imywRXFX-jcTkZqH7dTSnJw2...
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zB9xNV1imywRXFX-jcTkZqH7dTSnJw2...

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on September 28, 2015 at 4:00pm

Barbara, your link at the bottom is exactly the situation where Maine sits at the moment as explained in committees in Augusta. All of Maine's renewables are suppose to be the Buffering factor that avoids this from happening (so goes the excuse (as a reasoning)). This is also true of our heating fuel sector for the same methodology of justifications. Spiking Maines heating costs, (gas or oil fired electrical) premised on electrical spikes, when the ISO-NE grid fails to keep up with electrical heating demands from the predominantly higher electrical consumers of southern New England states in the name of Green Energy usage. Maine again Suffers that hit of fossil fuel spikes for a product by which they do not heat their homes. Thanks for posting this tidbit link. 

Comment by Barbara Durkin on September 28, 2015 at 1:29pm

Thank you, Eric.  I agree..."ENRONII"

Theres' a very interesting article by Katherine Yurica that identifies Patrick Wood III "Pat Wood", former FERC Chairman. 

Pat Wood is/was also the Director and part-owner of SunPower (bankrupt $1.5 bn.);  Director of Xtreme Power (bankrupt with at least ($600,000 in stimulus grants); Director of TPI Composites (Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) has awarded TPI a $250,000 grant http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/20936

“After all, TPI Composites has also received accolades from Barney Frank, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and President Obama. Iowa companies have received more than $160 million in Department of Energy stimulus grants. How unfortunate that some Republican contenders chose to endorse more of the same instead of taking the opportunity to explain the senselessness of such a system. One would think that the Iowa Straw Poll would have been the optimal event to explain the free market perspective rather than acquiesce to the demands for more corporate welfare…”

 Pat Wood is/ was Director of Range Fuels (bankrupt ($80 mil., also reported $300 mil.), , Wood3Resources, Quanta Services (under SEC investigation related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act); and the Director and part-owner of SunPower, AKA ‘SunPower: Twice As Bad As Solydra, Twice as Bad for Obama’   

  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46761 

 ...And, Wood is/was Chairman of the Board of Dynegy Inc., read below, a clip from-

Fraud Traced to the White House 

How California’s energy scam was inextricably
linked to a war for oil scheme

Here's a clip-I added Bold typeface-

Enter the Lead Villain

 

That Ken Lay, the former chairman of Enron, enjoyed a long and close relationship with George Bush senior is a well-known fact. What isn’t so well known is that George W. Bush also benefited from a close relationship with Lay. No one supported the younger Bush quite like Lay. Enron executives contributed more than $2 million to George W. Bush’s political campaigns since 1999, earning Lay an open door to the governor’s office. Lay was also Bush’s number one choice for Treasury Secretary. A study authorized by Rep. Henry Waxman reveals that Enron had 112 known contacts with the Bush administration in 2001. This figure does not include seventy-three disclosed contacts between former Army Secretary Thomas White and his former colleagues at Enron. (Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recently fired White.)

Significantly, Ken Lay was also a close friend to Dick Cheney who is a former Enron shareholder. It should come to no one’s surprise that given the relationships, Ken Lay was selected to work on the Bush energy transition team under the chairmanship of Cheney. Lay’s easiest assignment? He interviewed potential candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an agency that would oversee his company (and months later lead a slow, long investigation into Enron’s role in the California energy debacle). The President picked Lay’s nominee, Pat Wood, to serve as chairman of the agency.

 

Ken Lay was a very useful and a very knowledgeable man to have around. He knew, for instance, of the holes in the California power market that could be exploited. He tried to warn officials about the problem in 1994 when Enron testified at a Public Utility Commission hearing. Unfortunately his advice was ignored. Enron then went with the flow. It reversed itself, endorsed the system, and lauded the politicians for setting up what Enron knew was an exploitable and faulty infrastructure.

 

As events would unfold, the dark side of Enron got part of its comeuppance when the Justice Department began investigations of Enron’s role in the California energy disaster.

 

Along with Dynegy and other power brokering companies, Enron employees were subject to federal criminal charges. One Enron employee pleaded guilty to wire fraud while Dynegy agreed to pay $5 million in fines.

 

continue reading-

http://www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

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 -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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