THE Punter has peered into the future and can say with a fair degree of uncertainty that the stock market this year will go down, up and sideways.
Since he cannot tell when or by how much, he has had to make what he hopes is an intelligent guess – 2017 will be the year when the stock market will at long last begin to shine on renewable energy.
He has long dabbled in the clean and green energy sector, at great cost. Geothermal hopefuls Petratherm (PTR) and the former Panax Geothermal (now XPE) and the underground coal gasifier Carbon Energy are just three painful examples, but there are plenty of others.
The Punter has been a shareholder since 2010 in Carnegie Wave Energy, now renamed Carnegie Clean Energy (CCE) following its takeover of the microgrid specialists Energy Made Clean. Over the years, it has become his biggest single investment, but even though it is about to start building its first 15MW commercial plant, he is still showing a 30 per cent loss on his shares.
There are think tanks that will convince you that wind and solar are between two and five times more expensive that coal, and others that will tell you that alternative energy has been cheaper than coal since 2013. Both are probably exaggerations, but the evidence in favour of renewables is mounting.
In sunny Morocco and northern Chile, new solar power plants are expected to produce electricity at half the coast of coal-fired generation. In October, China cancelled the construction of 30 coal fired power stations. The International Energy Agency expects that over the medium term, more than 60 per cent of additional energy will come from renewables.
All the major Australian electricity suppliers have embraced solar panels and batteries. AGL is introducing a “virtual solar plant” in which it will buy and distribute surplus energy from a network of solar-powered homes.
Given the uncertainty with Tump as president and deepening divisions back home, the Punter isn’t rushing to buy. But he will add a few renewables to his 2017 watchlist.
• The Punter has no financial qualifications and no links to the industry.