Company Information

Introduction

Dependency on scarce resources and concerns regarding climate change are making available a wide series of different business opportunities in the renewable energy sector. HLC Environmental Holdings Ltd. is a global renewable energy project developer based in the UK comprising shareholding stakes in the wind, biofuels, biomass and carbon sectors, geographically spread throughout several emerging countries.

Why renewable energy?

The utilities sector is at the heart of the global economy supplying our fundamental needs – water, power and heat – from resources that are scarce and often major contributors to climate change. As such, the challenges are wide-ranging and comprehensive. Equally, the business opportunities are significant.

Electricity utilities face a number of problems. They are overwhelmingly based on fossil fuels, making them the major contributors to climate change. Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is also the cheapest and most widely available and its use is expanding because supplies of oil and gas are limited and in politically sensitive areas.

Energy utilities have been struggling with rising prices for the last decade and the sector is subject to increasing regulation. In Europe, electricity utilities are subject to the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, and have to buy allowances to cover the CO₂ emissions produced by their power generation. They will soon be joined by companies in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, which are all considering the introduction of emissions trading schemes.

In addition, the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive means that utilities must close fossil fuel installations that do not have flue gas desulphurisation equipment. Further legislation is likely to force companies to invest in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which would allow the continued use of fossil fuel, particularly coal, without increasing CO₂ emissions. Installing CCS will be expensive, but it is seen as imperative in tackling emissions given the amount of coal-fired generating capacity being built in emerging markets such as China and India.

Establishing a price for carbon should incentivise low-carbon production of electricity and other ways of “decarbonising” the power sector, such as energy efficiency. The ETS and global policies to tackle climate change have created a renewable energy sector out of virtually nothing and the sector is beginning to see the emergence of companies of real scale, such as Vestas and Suzlon, the wind turbine makers from Denmark and India respectively.

Solar power is less advanced than wind and remains more expensive than conventional power. Wind and solar are currently failing to fulfil their potential, because of shortages of key components and raw materials, as well as the current global financial climate. With solar, the principle constraint has been the availability of silicon, while with wind, according to New Energy Finance, issues range from a lack of turbine gearboxes to a shortage of specialist ships to install off-shore turbines. Analysts believe that a huge amount of new silicon capacity will reach the market over the next few years and will bring the price down. This will affect some solar players hard, but should cut the cost of solar power significantly for consumers within a few years.

The International Energy Agency expects an extra GBP 23,000 billion of investment is needed to halve CO₂ levels by 2050, leading energy developers and investors to “almost unlimited opportunities”, referred the Financial Times in an article which concluded that combined heat and power is likely to become more common in the next few years along with the replacement of current nuclear power capacity.

Renewable energy at the core of HLC EH

HLC Environmental Holdings Ltd. (HLC EH) was established in 1998 with the purpose of developing projects in the renewable energy industry. During this time it developed the “Full Circle” concept, which enables the development of activities surrounding the Kyoto Protocol, as illustrated below.

Click image above for a larger version.

This diagram illustrates the contribution of each business development as a response to the demands of Kyoto Protocol and demonstrates how HLC EH achieves a global position through the integration of these projects.

This model is based on the inputs and outputs of each business unit (companies), as explained in the example below:

“BET is negotiating vegetable oils in India for its trading business, either for external sale or for its own future production. In this process, when crushing seeds to produce vegetable oil, a cake-biomass will be produced, which will then be used for the production of energy and in the process, carbon credits (CERs) will be originated. This process brings synergies between different companies in the group, with one originating business for the other and vice-versa.”

With HLC EH monitoring and advising this portfolio of investments there is a company dealing with trading and origination with financial services for Carbon Credits (CERs) and the development of infrastructure projects that benefit local economies as well as mitigating climate change. These services are received by Special Purpose Companies (SPCs) which are set up for the origination of CERs through wind farms, biomass, biodiesel and small hydro-power plants.

The holding individual companies for each business activity were set up to maximize value to the shareholders and to create the means for the development of further business opportunities with a view to build a continuous model for development and growth.