Our Renewables MMI was flat again this month, another sign of stagnant prices and renewable power generation markets that are simply not maturing very fast.
Perhaps it’s a sign of just how tepid renewable technology metals markets are, that the purchase of major photovoltaic panel manufacturer SolarCity Corporation (NASDAQ:SCTY) and electric/hyrid automaker Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) didn’t really make a blip in the prices of silicon or our other renewable metals.
Industry consolidation is usually a good sign for emerging technologies and the synergies that Tesla could possibly take advantage of in providing electric car batteries, home energy storage and now solar-energy-collecting panels sort of make sense to allow Tesla to own the green power storage segment. If vertical integration hadn’t been abandoned by the auto industry decades ago.
Markets have responded with a veritable shrug. SolarCity shareholders are almost certain to file a lawsuit questioning the merger, all the shareholders who are, of course, not Tesla CEO Elon Musk who is also a major SolarCity shareholder. SolarCity’s CEO is Musk’s cousin. The $2.6 billion takeover will pay shareholders only $25.83 a share. Less than SolarCity’s share price the day the deal was announced.
Analysts hate the merger, too. Adam Jonas, an influential auto industry analyst at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), slashed his price target for Tesla and wrote in a note to clients that potential rewards would not adequately compensate investors for the greater risks and cash flow drain. Expanding into a non-auto business like solar energy exposes Tesla to “untested cost, competitive and regulatory forces,” he warned.
Tesla shares, themselves, dropped 10% the day the deal was announced. Even if this deal won’t move markets for silver, silicon, lithium or neodymium anytime soon, there are economies of scale that could pay off in the long run that Musk is looking at.
Tesla owners will eventually need to get power from energy sources other than plugging into a wall unit fed by a coal-fired electricity plant, after all. Just don’t expect Tesla to become the vertically integrated battery/solar panel/electric car maker that changes the world in the next five to 10 years.
Actual Renewables Prices
Neodymium dropped from $50,642.96 per metric ton in July to $48,920/mt this month, a big drop of 3.4%. Silicon increased to $1,821.33/mt this month from $1,818.34/mt in July, an increase of .2%.
by Jeff Yoders