KP Renewables is fighting for its life.

They have just reported a pretax loss for the period to June 30, 2026 of 2.27 mln stg compared with a loss of 83,865 stg for the same period a year earlier, on nil turnover.
directors have resigned and bizarrely, their home website www.kprenewables.com has been suspended.

There have been a few alternative energy companies of late who believed they could raise the cash in an IPO and then use that to make alternative energy acquisitions and subsequent returns for stockholders. I’m beginning to have my doubts about this sort of model. It works on the presumption of superior investment knowledge of those Directors over the experts in any of the given fields of expertise of wind, solar etc.

They also face the problem that in alternative energy, there is a lot of money chasing not a great deal of product. So not overpaying for assets and underperforming the market is very difficult to do.

Novera Energy, a company engaged in waste gas and wind power has just chosen to change domicile from Australia to the UK. This is pretty much the final stage in it’s anglo-isation, if you’ll forgive the phrase. Since listing on AIM in 2005, the company’s focus has become more and more UKcentric.

Four-fifths of sales still come from landfill operations and according to this detailed article, profits are still 2 years away.

What is also potentially troublesome is that the author of the article believes the stock price of Novera is driven by the hopes of more UK windfarms coming onstream. You have to wonder if that is not too optimistic. No UK government has ever supported windpower so much as the current one under Tony Blair. And yet they were unable to force through windfarm developments through the planning system at anything like the rate they anticipated. A new government in the next few years will not be as favourable. And it seems at least possible that the likes of Novera - a minnow - will always be outbid on rights to a potential windfarm site by a bigger player.

Meanwhile, the future of building profitable onshore wind farms should really be in Central and Eastern Europe, rather than Western Europe. That was so yesterday’s investment story. In Germany today, most of the good wind sites are now taken and the UK - more for planning reasons - is not a great future market either.

Here’s a post that touches on the crunch issue for many alternative energy companies;
Do you want jam today or jam tomorrow?

The posting talks briefly about Renewable Energy Holdings.

So here’s my take on the jam - viewed as what is cost effective and able to generate profits free of government intervention.

Jam today technologies - now until 2010

Waste (landfill) gas
Onshore wind
Solar thermal
Geothermal

Jam tomorrow technologies - post 2010

Biodiesel
Bioethanol
Biogas
Energy storage
Offshore wind

Jam the day after tomorrow technologies - post 2025

Fuel cells
Solar PV
Wave

Satcon Technology Corp is having a rough time of it on the Nasdaq.

The company has requested a hearing because its market cap. had fallen below $50,000,000 for 10 consecutive business days as at August 30th. This means it has failed to comply with the continued listing requirements of The Nasdaq Global Market.

What a ridiculous, arbitrary rule. Why not 11 days and $49 m dollars?

And why have such a rule at all?

Whenever I see round numbers, I become immediately sceptical and suspicious of overly bureaucratic activity. No wonder smaller US companies are now seeking to list on AIM rather than the Nasdaq. I’m sure there are people out there who can argue otherwise, but I don’t really see the benefit of this rule to aspiring companies or the Nasdaq.