Member Info for Alfacomp

indeed the US customs dockets do not lie

Indeed and a huge fraction (25%+) of the carbon mitigation is going to be apparently achieved by planting trees. I assume that they are working on the basis that the amazon forest will have been destroyed by then so there will be the space for them to do that there and they will be able to cut a deal with Bolsonaro's son.

Pinecone - as I mentioned I chose not to invest in RedT under the previous administration, entirely because they had not sorted out their Vanadium supply issue. With as much as 40% of the battery cost in the Vanadium VRFBs are unlike any other flow battery, or indeed any other battery technology. No other battery technology has such a strong dependence on a single element as VRFBs.

This feature has always meant that those who have their own Vanadium source will survive and prosper, whilst those without could easily get starved or locked out by speculative price rises in the Vanadium market. This can come from many sources, not least the demand for rebar and the secondary vanadium supplied from reprocessed Sl-a-g from VTM steel processing. Why would any VRFB company worth their salt want to risk their futures on something quite so uncontrollable as that. How even do they produce a price list for their products ?

Stina resources tried to ride that wave, claiming that they had an integrated mines-to-batteries offering but ultimately came a cropper because they made not a single cent from the high Vanadium prices of 2017-2018. This was because their Bisoni-Mckay project is still years from digging any ore. That is why they are now selling Cellcube (ex Gildemeister).

Cellcube had their own problems when they were Gildemeister owned by DMG mori, but they too realised that without a mine they would struggle. RedT did okay out of Gildemeister's 2017 problems picking up Adam Whitehead and Stina then picked up the rest, but only until reality came to visit.

I'm genuinely sorry for anyone who invested in RedT but it is what it is and is now in the past, anyone who is holding IES now must realise that this is now a very different situation. Presumably any genuine holders would be interested in seeing the company do well and the SP appreciate. The baseless knocking that has been on show here recently makes absolutely no sense and of course is exactly what you would expect from those looking for the lowest possible buy in price that they can spoof existing shareholders to sell at.

James - if you were invested in 2016 then you can remember the factual arguments that I had with Bolgas regarding RedT's situation with respect to Vanadium supply then. He then simply laughed it off saying that RedT would pick up the Vanadium from somewhere, the Russian's maybe.

Well along came the 2017-2018 Vanadium price spike and look what happened to both RedT and Dalian's prospects.

It was always clear to me that VRFB manufacturers could only succeed when they had either a long term supply agreement with Vanadium suppliers in place, or their own mine. RedT had neither which is why I never bought a single share in the company.

The situation is of course completely different now.

Fine, if you are unconvinced then go somewhere else, nobody is forcing you to stay here. Sell your shares and find a company that you have some faith in.

Here is some more advice if you wish to try reading a bit about the field that the company is in.

Here's a few basic articles to get you started:-

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-414

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-415

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-416

If you want to see what that pit looks like you can watch 'Inside the Factory, Pots and Pans' as I did, last night.

With the SA government fortune always plays things safe.

evidently you have no idea what you are talking about, and cannot bear it when someone who does turns up to shed light on your facile nonsense.

I am happy to remind everyone what you said only 11 days ago-
"It appears the company is now being run by somebody who has No Energy knowledge and comes over more like a used car salesman."

You evidently did not take the time to find out about any of the people who are now running the company, or bother attend the webinar last week. Anyone who wants to understand where IES is going should have done at least one of these. If you want to understand where long-duration energy storage is going you should read this:- https://www.apricum-group.com/storage-at-20-usd-mwh-breaking-down-the-low-cost-solar-plus-storage-ppas-in-the-usa/

We all know that those calling for 'balance' are always the ones who have nothing else to add. Perhaps you should try doing some research or find another share to try and spread your nonsense on.

Ahhh I see our resident nonsense mongers have now turned up. So according to Scouts Oxford City Council are single handedly going to pay for the government's Covid mitigation strategy. Tough luck on them, hey ho, eh.

What utter tripe you are serving up for us. Dredging up the past and telling us the future is inevitably going to be the same. Ah but no it will be much worse. Perhaps you should actually do some research into the scale of long duration battery storage that is necessarily going to be needed to decarbonise the electricity system. You know, like I have over the last 5 years, and have published here:-

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-414
https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-415
https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-416

Seadogsteve, it would be rude to agree with your statement, but I know what you mean.

Well done BB. Seadogsteve - you can't go on the colouring that sites like LSE or AD-Vfn apply you need to do a proper analysis like those shown here to really get a better idea of the true Buy/Sells - https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-trade-analysis-6

258MW Solar plant completed.

https://www.energize.co.za/massive-sa-solar-complex-completed/

it's a joke at the moment. One minute the trades are there, next they are gone.

Hippydays - if that is about Majorana Fermions then it is not important unless you happen to be a theoretical condensed matter physicist.

FFS can we cut this noise now. I am enjoying watching the SP rise.

lol Ninjamagic, I shall try and summarise it so that even the furries out there can understand it.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory have shown that even with current levels of PhotoVoltaic penetration in the US that 140 GWh of 4 hour batteries plus 280 GWh of 8 hour batteries could displace gas peaking plants. As more PV gets installed this number grows.

The recent 8-minute bid of $40/MWh for solar-plus-storage ( https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/inside-8minute-solar-energy-the-developer-nabbing-numerous-records ) for the LA department of Water and Power shows how those batteries are going to get paid for - essentially as a storage 'adder' component of $20/MWh on energy generated by naked renewable sources.

In round numbers 400 GWh of storage at $200/KWh Capex would correspond to $80 Billion dollars worth. That is just for the United States.

after reading this I do not

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

... so to get instead from the $400,000 /MWh Capex down to a $100 per charge-discharge cycle you would only need perhaps 4,000 cycles (zero cost of capital, 100% efficiency) to be fully reimbursed .

For realistic cost of capital and efficiencies which might degrade over time, plus perhaps the $40/MWh PPA rate being index linked you could get full payback after 20-25 years at 1 cycle per day. Which is why they were able to bid that in the auction.

Conclusion:- the 'plus storage' component of 'Solar plus storage' is easily affordable ($20/MWh) compared with the conventional alternative of gas fired peaker plants ($200/MWh).

Combine this commercially observed fact with the modelling that NREL have done in relation to the potential displacement of gas peaker plants by batteries in the US (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/74184.pdf ) and you can see that it is not just possible to completely displace massive amounts of CO2 generating plants but that it also works out significantly cheaper. Put simply the sun is free but gas is not.

The first major point to observe is that the PV farm operator that is billing $40 per MWh to LADWP is able to bill that on every MWh they despatch, EVEN MWh's that go straight from the PV panels into the grid, bypassing the battery completely. The LADWP does not know whether the energy has flowed through the battery or not, and indeed does not care.

The amount of electrical energy that goes via the battery turns out to be only about 20% of the total - so for every 5 MWh of energy supplied 4 goes direct from the PV panels and only 1 goes via the battery, but the PV farm owner gets to bill $20 x 5MWh - so for each MWh that goes via the battery they get to collect $100, not $20.

The 'Solar+Storage' is a fully integrated offering, considered superior to a 'solar only' one and so gets rewarded with higher prices. The storage element can very effectively piggyback on the solar farm and does not have to try and justify itself in some sort of pricing vacuum.