Apricum articles
Our view on the latest developments in the cleantech industry.
The Renaissance of the European PV industry
While solar has experienced a bumpy ride over the last decade, we now stand at the beginning of a new dawn in Europe for solar PV. A sense of urgency to tackle climate change is finally pervading among corporates as well as individuals with governments beginning to...
Solar power in ASEAN: A snapshot and outlook of the solar power markets and growing M&A scene
The ASEAN region (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) exhibits many important drivers for the successful generation of solar power and is, therefore, one of the prime regions for renewable energy...
The SPAC Track – fast lane growth or road to ruin? They are both.
2021 is already the year of the SPAC: they are awash with capital and eyeing the energy transition. With many clients being approached about SPAC mergers, Apricum sets out how they work and whom they suit. The overwhelming number of SPACs are listed in the USA, where...
The compelling case of merchant risk for financing renewable energy projects – 8 opportunities for traditional energy companies
Looking through the other end of a telescope creates an unfamiliar and remote view, but distance can create valuable perspectives. Here we take an outsider’s perspective on renewables finance, to reveal opportunities for companies seeking to transition to cleaner...
The pockets of energy storage opportunity
The energy storage market is characterized by a landscape of heterogeneous “pockets of opportunities”, a concept that is key to understand for being successful in energy storage.
The business of localization: Insights for success in the Saudi renewables market
There are two sides of the coin when it comes to promoting local content in the renewables industry. In emerging markets like Brazil, South Africa and India, incentivizing and promoting local industry benefits the domestic economy. However, it also results in...
Beneficial in the long run – challenges and opportunities for “longer-duration storage”
Between five and more than 1,000 hours of energy discharge – that’s what the term “long-duration energy storage” encompasses in the industry today. It’s a pretty broad definition that covers a wide array of storage technologies, use cases and companies involved....
The horsepower driving the “decade of energy storage”
The future for energy storage is bright. Fighting global climate change has become an undisputed imperative of our time, and renewable energy and e-mobility are key elements in this battle. Energy storage is closely interlinked to both: The first pushing up its...
Vietnam’s solar success story and why its solar M&A landscape is about to heat up
Vietnam’s solar star is clearly on the rise. In 2016, the long awaited announcement of the first solar feed-in tariff (FiT) policy for solar project development (also further referred to as FiT phase 1) in Vietnam triggered a solar success story, unique in the ASEAN...
Buffered charging – how batteries can close the widening “charging gap”
The ‘charging gap’ is widening”, Volkswagen’s head of e-mobility Thomas Ulbrich warned last week as the number of new electric vehicles (EVs) on the streets is increasingly outpacing available charging points. Based on the forecasted 2.5 to 4 million EVs and plug-in...
What’s in it for large-scale energy storage in Germany (beyond control reserve)?
“Batteries are dead in continental Europe”, the CEO of Next Kraftwerke, a Germany-based virtual power plant (VPP) operator, was quoted as saying at a conference earlier this year. At the time, the primary control reserve (PCR) market – still the primary driver for...
Clouds, communities and virtual batteries: A look behind the curtain
Tesla’s plan to offer its own electricity tariffs moved forward in the UK at the end of October with the introduction of its “Tesla Energy Plan”. Participating homeowners with an installed solar system and a Powerwall storage unit are promised the lowest flat rate for...