Going Green: Investing in Renewable Energy Stocks

In the backdrop of a series of climate change conferences and summits taking place across the globe, the focus on renewable energy sources has sharpened multifold. A lot of companies from this sector have issued their IPOs in this year and are ready to hit the runway.

Renewable energy is an upcoming sector in India. Although the wind energy sector has established itself firmly in the country, other renewable energy resources segments such as solar and water have merely scraped the surface. Renewable energy, on the whole, has a lot of capability for India and the sector offers some fantastic investment chances.

Let us discuss some key levers affecting the stocks in this sector ahead of the New Year:

The Policy Push by the Governments:

Various renewable energy companies became listed on stock exchanges in the period after the 20th century. The beginning of the 21st century was a very important time for the renewable energy industry since many governments set long term renewable energy goals.

Some opted to directly subsidize the renewables with feed-in-tariffs and other temporary measures to bridge the gap to full cost accounting that would completely reward these technologies for their low emissions and lack of interference with ecosystem works, and also to make sure some capability and encouragement to install conservation-concentrated smart grid technologies.

Excellent grid regulation in the United States was especially essential in driving renewable energy in that country, Smart appliances, and energy conservation software, and reversed in general to those of other "energy" firms, which efficiently depend on the lack of this intelligence or accounting to appear competitive.

Sunshine for the Solar Sector

Solar stocks were not very impressive, and the renewable sector was on a downturn during 2016, but the sector is looking good for a turnaround story in 2019. The solar industry is poised to make impressive returns of over 40% during the next year.

Solar stocks are set to soar during the upcoming fiscal year largely banking on government programs and renewed interest in the sector. While the companies discussed here have a lot of potentials, the renewable sector is still developing and if you are looking to book profits only in the long term, then this may be of use.

Solar is one of the fastest growing sectors to have displayed a huge amount of potential. With progress in solar panels manufacturing, costs have come down drastically. The renewable energy sector has gained parity with the conventional sources of energy and as the world shifts towards a renewable source, solar is bound to take lead.

The government of India has undertaken a National Solar Mission to boost the solar sector in the country. The REC and RPO mechanism are in place to grow the renewable sector in India. Many corporates have also pledged to source 90% of electricity from renewable energy sources as part of their voluntary renewable energy goals such as RE100.

112 companies are committed to shifting to 90% renewable power under the RE100 campaign which involves big brands like AkzoNobel, Apple, Google, Facebook, Ikea, etc.  Among Indian companies, Infosys, Tata Motors and Dalmia Cement have committed to source 100% of their power needs from renewable sources.

On the whole, a good push for this sector is on the cards and a company with stable governance and strong records is sure to soar high in the time to come.