nuclear-news

North America looking at a Trillion Dollar Renewable Energy Market

A Trillion Dollar Renewable Energy Market Might Have Just Opened Up in North America
An agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico could open up new growth for the solar industry. The Motley Fool  Travis Hoium (TMFFlushDraw)
Jul 4, 2016  Leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico agreed this week to increase their renewable energy consumption in an effort to get half of North America’s energy from renewable sources by 2025. It’s a lofty goal, despite assertions that 37% of the region’s energy already comes from renewables. But it highlights just how much of a coordinated effort the countries are taking. And it may open a trillion dollar energy market for renewable energy companies. 

Cross-border transmission is big

One of the biggest things holding back renewable energy from an even larger market share is transmission lines. There’s not enough transmission that goes from the windy sections of Texas or Iowa or the sunny corners of Nevada and California to population centers. Part of the agreement will be to build cross-border transmission that will allow cheap renewable energy to flow more freely to where it’s needed.

To put the potential impact into perspective, the Brattle Group estimated that $130 billion in grid upgrades and transmission will be needed in the next decade to meet renewable standards in the U.S. And if those standards go up, we’re talking about billions, or hundreds of billions more.

The companies that could benefit from this are transmission line builders like Quanta Services (NYSE:PWR) and MYR Group (NASDAQ:MYRG), which have been talking about the upgrade cycle in transmission lines for years. Maybe this will help some of that come to fruition. On the ownership side, National Grid is a major infrastructure company with transmission lines all over the world……..

The two developers that would likely get a lot of business from a North America expansion of renewables are First Solar and SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR), which are the two largest solar developers in the U.S. For example, SunPower just won 500 megawatts out of 1,860 megawatts auctioned in Mexico, part of the country’s major expansion in renewables. If Mexico starts exporting solar or wind energy to Southern California it could expand that solar market……..

Maybe the renewable energy revolution has legs left in North America after all. http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/04/a-trillion-dollar-renewable-energy-market-just-ope.aspx

July 20, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | NORTH AMERICA, renewable