Nov. 16, 2021, (POWERGRID International)-This week, Southern Company, the founding member of venture capital firm Energy Impact Partners (EIP), announced the launch of EIP’s Flagship Fund, Fund II. The Fund received $1 billion in commitments and will focus on investing in venture and growth companies advancing critical climate solutions.

Through Fund II, Southern Company said it plans to continue working with EIP to identify cutting-edge technologies that advance the zero-carbon economy and address global decarbonization goals. This includes companies innovating across supply decarbonization, electrification, mobility, tech-enabled infrastructure, reliability and resilience and intelligent demand.

Nov. 15, 2021, (Renewable Energy World)-German energy titan RWE plans to invest €50 billion in renewable energy technologies by 2030 as part of a new strategy to deploy an additional 25 gigawatts of clean energy generating capacity.

The plan, announced Monday, would bring RWE's total green generation to 50 GW by the end of the decade. The corporation will invest in onshore and offshore wind, solar, batteries, flexible generation, and hydrogen.

Oct. 27, 2021, (The Nation), - At the start of September, Princeton University students were welcomed back to campus with a “tornado emergency.” After receiving confirmation that a tornado caused by Hurricane Ida had touched down and was headed toward campus, students were instructed to take shelter in the basements. However, many of those basements were filled with inches of standing water as a result of flash flooding.

The severity of the climate crisis is now undeniable even here in Central New Jersey, where our administrators have been sitting comfortably as much of the country experiences wildfires, drought, tropical storms, flooding, and glacial recession. If a tornado and flash flooding won’t do the trick, what will it take for Princeton to finally end its ties with the fossil fuel industry?

Oct. 27, 2021, (NATIONAL OBSERVER), -The University of Toronto will immediately begin divesting its $4-billion endowment fund of fossil fuel investments, a big win for climate activists on campus and others who have called for such a move for years.

“The growing severity of the climate crisis now demands bold actions that have both substantive and symbolic impact,” the university’s president, Meric Gertler, said in a letter to the U of T community announcing the move on Wednesday.

Sep. 15, 2021, (POWERGRID International), -The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced and priced a $500 million offering of 10-year maturity green bonds today, its first offering of a sustainability-focused financial instrument.

The utility said the bonds will fund ongoing capital investments that build on TVA’s ESG Program as well as help it meet its decarbonization goals.

Sep. 10, 2021, (Renewable Energy World), -Energy Vault's merger with Novus Capital Corporation II values the grid-scale energy storage provider at $1.1 billion, the company announced Thursday.

The combined company is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "GWHR." Robert Piconi will lead the combined venture as chairman and CEO.

Energy Vault's energy storage systems use gravity to store and release renewable energy on demand, giving grid-scale reliability to clean energy sources in place of fossil fuels.

July 20, 2021 (Renewable Energy World) -Generate, a sustainable infrastructure company, yesterday announced it has raised $2 billion in corporate equity from institutional investors to accelerate the deployment of sustainable infrastructure. Existing investors AustralianSuper and QIC led the fundraising round with new investment from Harbert Management Corporation, Aware Super, and CBRE Caledon.

Generate said the fundraising tapped many of the world’s largest long-term oriented pension funds and institutional investors from Australia, the U.S., and Europe, including additional commitments from existing investors AP2 of Sweden, Railways Pension of the UK and The Wellcome Trust.

July 6, 2021 (greener ideal) -Renewable energy has been an important sector for many years, and there’s no sign of this slowing down.

As financial institutions divest from fossil fuels and world governments commit to climate objectives, investment in renewables is guaranteed to grow. Renewables are establishing themselves as a fundamental component of our models of the future.

Solar PV (photovoltaics) are estimated to form around half of the expansion in renewables – that means this industry is growing fast. Projections into the next decade suggest that there’s a multi-billion dollar market in solar. It’s a great time to invest in a solar business.

June 15, 2021 (Energy Central) -A new analysis released today by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) finds that confidence among both renewable energy investors and developers is at an all-time high. The report, Expectations for Renewable Energy Finance in 2021-2024, presents the results of a new survey of prominent financial institutions and renewable energy development companies on their confidence in the sector in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new report also tracks progress on the $1T 2030: American Renewable Investment Goal, an initiative ACORE launched in 2018 to help secure $1 trillion in private sector investment in renewable energy and enabling grid technologies by 2030.

(NY Times Climate Forward), May 29, 2021 - A nun, an environmental lawyer, pension fund executives, and the world’s largest asset manager. These were among the unusual collection of rebels who claimed a series of startling victories this week against some of the world’s biggest and most influential fossil fuel companies.

From Houston to The Hague, they fought their battles in shareholder meetings and courtrooms, opening surprising fronts in an accelerating effort to force the world’s coal, oil and gas companies to address their central role in the climate crisis.

(CleanTechnica), May 29, 2021 -Several top lenders to the steel sector — Citi, Goldman Sachs, ING, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered, and UniCredit — have come together to define common standards of action for steel sector decarbonization through a collective climate-aligned finance agreement.

A climate-aligned finance agreement establishes a framework for assessing and disclosing the degree to which the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a financial institution’s portfolio are in line with 1.5°C climate targets.

May 26, 2021 (THE CONVERSATION)-One of the most expensive Wall Street shareholder battles on record could signal a big shift in how hedge funds and other investors view sustainability.

Exxon Mobil Corp. has been fending off a so-called proxy fight from a hedge fund known as Engine No. 1, which blames the energy giant’s poor performance in recent years on its failure to transition to a “decarbonizing world.” In a May 26, 2021 vote, Exxon shareholders approved at least two of the four board members Engine No. 1 nominated, dealing a major blow to the oil company. The vote is ongoing, and more of the hedge fund’s nominees may also soon be appointed.

(ZME Science), May 21, 2021- It’s the “greatest challenge humankind has ever faced” but we can still tackle climate change if we act quickly, the International Energy Agency (EIA) said. According to the agency’s landmark report, all countries have to stop all investment in new fossil fuel plants — right now.

Never before has the EIA made such a strong warning to drastically scale back fossil fuels.

May 3, 2021 (NY Times)-Executives across corporate America, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, have begun to heed calls from investors to disclose more about their companies’ actions on climate change and work force diversity. Warren E. Buffett isn’t among them.

Berkshire Hathaway, the $630 billion conglomerate he runs, is opposing two shareholder proposals that ask its board to publish annual reports on how it is tackling environmental and diversity issues.

Mar. 24, 2021 (The Guardian) -Despite the Covid-19 pandemic cutting energy use, overall funding remains on an upward trend and the finance provided in 2020 was higher than in 2016 or 2017, a fact the report’s authors and others described as “shocking”.

Oil, gas and coal will need to be burned for some years to come. But it has been known since at least 2015 that a significant proportion of existing reserves must remain in the ground if global heating is to remain below 2C, the main Paris target.

Jan. 26, 2021 (NY Times Climate Forward)- A year ago this month, the BlackRock chief Laurence D. Fink wrote a letter to the world’s C.E.O.s with an urgent message: Climate change will be “a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects.” Underscoring his point, he added, “We are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”

Jan. 11, 2021(POWERGRID International)-Investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Energy Partners (MSEP), part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, announced today that they have completed an investment in Alpharetta, Georgia-based SolMicroGrid to help support the growth of SolMicroGrid’s business, which offers innovative microgrid solutions through an Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS) business model.

(CleanTechnica), Jan 1, 2021, -The global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy isn’t going to happen because it’s the best choice for human health and the environment. Observing the way humans have responded to the current pandemic should put to rest any delusions about our propensity to “do the right thing.” No, companies and investors will abandon polluting energy sources when they become convinced that it’s the profitable thing to do. Fortunately, we’re seeing strong signs that this is beginning to happen.

Alex Kimani, writing in the oil industry trade magazine OilPrice.com, explains how an increasing number of large institutional investors are shifting their assets from the oil patch to what are called “ESG” (Environmental, Social and Governance) investments — a category that includes renewable energy and e-mobility.

(AltEnergyStocks), Dec. 29, 2020, by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., An annual tradition, here is my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2021, which is also the new model portfolio for the year, with equal dollar values of each stock using closing prices on 12/29/2020.

Returning Stocks:
• Mix Telematics (MIXT), Green Plains Partners (GPP), • Covanta Holding (CVA), • Red Electrica (REE.MC, RDEIF, RDEIY), • Valeo, SA (FR.PA, VLEEF, VLEEY), • Veolia (VIE.PA, VEOEF, VEOEY

New Stocks:
• Scorpio Bulkers, Inc. (SALT) – Dry bulk shipper converting to offshore wind construction, • Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners (BEP) – A leading clean energy Yieldco with significant hydropower assets., • Umicore, SA (UMI.BR, UMICF, UMICY) – Leading recycler of batteries and specialty metals.,• Avangrid (AGR) – Owner of renewable generation and utilities.

(POWERGRID International), Dec. 10, 2020 - Connecticut Green Bank and its partners are proud to announce a collaboration that is the first joinable, grouped carbon offset credit project registered under the new methodology for electric vehicle (EV) charging systems. The project design has been successfully validated under Verra’s internationally recognized Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program by third-party verification firm, SCS Global Services.

CT Green Bank’s expanding roster of project partners, which currently includes EV pioneers Volta, U-Go Stations which was recently acquired by Blink Charging, Proterra, and the Ev Structure Company – with Dominion Energy joining – already have 725 EV charging stations across the United States enrolled with the project. With registered carbon credits, this validated project, once verified in mid-2021, is expected to bring in new funding from the carbon capital markets, which will increase the value proposition and accelerate the deployment of EV charging infrastructure in communities across the U.S.