Tag Archives: Energy Transition

The Energy Transition basket: Are Cables the new “Shovels” ? (Prysmian, Nexans, NKT)

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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!!

Background:

I am currently trying to build up exposure to what I expect to be a long term trend towards electrification (see the first post). As I am still learning on the way, I decided to start with a “basket” approach where I try to build a basket of (lower weighted)  potentially interesting stocks and then dive deeper during the following months/years So the initial analysis will be a little bit more shallow than usual.

This should be seen as a “scientific experiment”, so it could easily be that I find out that some (or all) of the positions don’t make any sense and I will sell them.

An alternative would be to read for months/years, write down a lot of stuff and then come out with a few “conviction investments” but that path is more difficult for me to implement. I prefer to get my toes into the water early in order to remain motivated.

As the whole effort in this sector/industry is about building up the infrastructure of the future, many of the companies will have a capital intensive business model. Of course I would prefer capital light business models at super low valuations but I haven’t been able to identify any yet.

Finally I am aware that I am maybe a little bit late to the party, but my expectation is that the party will last for a long time.

Are Cables the new shovels ?

During the Wild West Gold rush, there was the famous saying that the surest way to get rich in the gold rush was not to dig for gold but sell shovels to gold diggers. The deeper meaning of this saying is in my opinion, that in a situation similar to a gold rush you can make a lot of money by selling relatively ordinary things to people who desperately need them if there is a (local) shortage of these items.

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The new “Energy Transition” Basket Part 1 – (Siemens Energy, Orsted, AKer Horizon)

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Background:

As some of my readers might have noticed, I have been looking deeper into the topic of renewable energy and connected topics such as Climate change, Net Zero targets etc.

My current conclusion is that we might have reached a real “Tipping point” towards a significant increase in “Electrification” which in my opinion is driven by a confluence of several factors:

  • The cost of renewable energy (esp. Solar) has been dropping by -90% over the last 10 years and is still dropping further. Solar is (c.p.) now the cheapest available resource of electricity on the planet
  • Battery technology is making leaps and prices are dropping as well quickly, very similar to solar energy
  • A few major electric appliances are already better or almost equal compared to fossil alternatives (Electric heat pumps already now, EVs in very short time, DRI & Electric arc furnaces for steel, Green ammonia etc.) 
  • Money is flowing into the sector like never before, driven by ESG considerations
  • Governments are pushing into the same direction. Europe so far has been leading, but under Biden the US is pushing hard
  • interest rates are low which makes creating new infrastructure cheaper than never before

There remain a lot of challenges, especially the “intermittency” of renewable energy and the current lack of solutions for longer term storage. However, especially in the battery space there is significant progress made. Plus, all the billions now flowing into “Green tech” will create a “Cambrian explosion” of new technologies in a few years time. 

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