motley fool: top renewable energy stock pick - energy storage companies

When people think about renewable energy, a few names may come to mind. Tesla Motors (TSLA)
Electric cars and potential energy storage products made headlines later this week.
SolarCity sister company (SCTY)
The largest name in residential solar power has swept the country over the past few years.
Then the first solar energy. FSLR)
He is still one of the biggest companies in solar and Edison (SUNE)
The largest renewable energy installer in the world.
But the renewable energy company that is often overlooked is SunPower (SPWR).
It is not the most dazzling company, nor is it growing as high as some of its competitors.
But some of its key advantages make it my favorite renewable energy source.
Most of the growth in the solar industry over the past few years can be attributed to the rapid decline in solar panel costs and installation-related costs.
Just five or six years ago, solar panels cost $2 or more per watt, and today, a commodity panel costs 50 to 60 cents per watt.
Combining cost reductions in other parts of the system with fast-improving financing, companies like SolarCity can sell solar leases at a price lower than the customer's electricity bill from utilities.
But the core of solar power is technology.
In terms of technology, few low-cost solar panel manufacturers have done something different than they did a decade ago.
Most companies use the same equipment to produce very similar products, making most solar panels a commodity.
SunPower makes a completely different solar panel instead of 14%-
Like the panels used in a typical SolarCity installation, 16% efficiency will be converted to 21.
5% of the sun's energy is converted into electric energy.
This provides a basic technical advantage for the company, and its value has just begun to emerge.
Using Efficient products SunPower can generate more energy on the roof of the house, or use products like C7 to concentrate the energy of the sun and capture more energy from a smaller space, which
Long-term cost advantage.
Combined with SunPower's rear contact structure and the fact of Mono
The products manufactured by the crystal base degrade slower than the competitors, and you have a product that produces 70% of the energy than the traditional system.
Sunpower's efficiency advantage has laid the perfect foundation for the next wave of changes in the solar industry.
As the residential market moves from leasing to lending, the first change will be the residential market.
In the long run, there is no reason to think that leasing will be the main financing option for the industry, especially as system costs decline, complex tax incentives decrease and loans become more common.
When this happens, SunPower can compete on the basis of the product to provide a better product
See products, more power generation, and higher quality than competitors.
An improvement that will affect the residential and commercial markets over the next decade will be energy storage and energy-as-a-service development.
SunPower and tendrils and EnerNOC (ENOC)
Providing the necessary information from residential and commercial systems, respectively, makes new advances such as demand response and energy management possible.
This move makes energy a service.
On-site production and storage will be key to the growth of the commercial market, where SunPower can leverage its premium products with a much smaller sales force than the investment residential market.
This is a new concept: SunPower is actually a profitable company.
Compare SunPower's profitability with SolarCity and SunEdison, which are more valuable in the stock market.
For these companies, net income doesn't say the whole thing, but it's a measure of how we're absolutely sure they can create value.
The retained value that SolarCity and SunEdison introduced to investors is an approximation of the value, but it contains very favorable assumptions that may not actually be realized, which investors need to remember.
The above Net income also does not show the true value of SunPower.
The company's balance sheet holds approximately 100 MW of projects on a quarterly basis, some of which are expected to launch 8 point t3 Energy yieldco with First Solar.
These projects are expected to generate about twice the value per watt in the development process as early as the sales system, which is the typical way the company has operated so far.
In an industry where conditions change very quickly, I will take the company starting from the profit base to the company with some unknown value creation in the future.
In the last five years, solar companies have grown as well as any solar company today, but in the past five years it has indeed been in a survival model.
When the global supply of solar panels was over in 2011 and 2012, the price of panels plummeted and SunPower had to lower prices and profit margins in order to compete.
Over the past three years, it has transformed into a focus on building systems, not just providing panels, that have not really developed yet.
This will change.
As you can see in the chart on the right, SunPower is expanding system production over the next five years, trying to double the number of installations.
More solar cell manufacturing will be part of the plan, but so will the growth of centralized solar power plants (
Expressed in LCPV, or in low concentration photovoltaic).
This growth, and the value of the yieldco mentioned earlier, should contribute to a substantial increase in future revenue.
Why is SunPower the best in renewable energy, having a technology lead in the growth industry and building a business model for the future, SunPower is my favorite renewable energy stock.
But keep in mind that the industry is changing very quickly and some companies will grow more or less than others.
So I look at this from a holistic perspective and take into account growth opportunities, sustainable advantages and risks.
Other renewable energy stocks will definitely surpass SunPower in the next 5 or 10 years, but I think they are more risky.
My money is on SunPower when it comes to growth, risk, value and all the other factors.
Now is the time for investors to see if the investment paper is going as planned.
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