There is news today that Ormat is expected to post a Q1 loss in its earnings report due May 9. Analysts expected to see revenue of $67M and net income of $0.23 per share, but the company indicated that a net loss of $5.5 – $6.5M should be expected instead due to lower revenue on a delayed project and higher than expected maintenance costs at three plants. The company does assert that it will be profitable for 2007 as a whole. As the market is not yet open, the effects of this announcement have not been observed. But, we predict that Ormat will fall to the $35/share range on the logic discussed in an earlier post on this subject valuing the company.

This was a miss Ormat can ill-afford. Q1 of last year, Ormat announced revenue of $60.3M and net income of $0.25 per share. Is this a one-time blip, or is the debt and operations load too heavy? Only time will tell. Expect the valuation to drop toward 18x vs. the rich 40x multiple seen over the past 12 months.

Disclosure: Our principals hold no position in Ormat.

This is the latest in a series of contests aimed at sustainability by the folks at UrbanRevision. Submit your entry by May 1st.

In what is becoming a routine occurrence, Raser Technologies announced that it has secured another 9,889 acres of geothermal leases in Central Utah. That brings the total leased acres up to 28,091. Raser has entered into an agreement with UTC Power for 135 PureCycle binary power units. The next thing to see in the development cycle is a power purchase agreement. While immediate details of these properties are not available, transmission access will be a big hurdle to clear as well.

This photo was taken in China as a way of promoting conservation. The sponsoring entity, 20to20.org, has all sorts of conservation messages aimed at the Chinese population. On the balloon it says “Drive one day less and look at how much carbon monoxide you’ll keep out of the air we breathe.”

What a great idea to put a viewing platform on a turbine shaft, particularly where there may be some public resistance to accepting turbines. This video is a short and informative clip about a planned 7 turbine farm by Ecotricity in Swaffham, Norfolk in England.



This video features the Centennial Wind Farm in Saskatchawan, Canada which consists of 83, 1.8MW turbines. It’s a nice look at the installation.



This video shows the inside of a 1.5MW, 75 meter tower in a small wind farm near Hagerman, Idaho. It is clearly a personal video, but shows the inside of the tower from the ground level pretty well.



This is a short just the facts video about the Weatherford wind farm operated by Florida Power and Light in Oklahoma.



Recently we featured an entry on Aerotecture, the following video shows a couple of their vertical units being tested.



This video shows the assembly of a Vestas v82 turbine on the St. Olaf campus in Northfield, Minnesota. If you’ve never seen assembly, this is not to be missed.