Still in the ‘Buying Mode,’ Acorn Energy CEO Seeks To Build a Complete ‘Energy Solutions’ Business
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
John Moore, president and CEO of Acorn Energy Inc. in Montchanin, DE, sees nothing but trouble ahead for the U.S. electric power industry. Not only does he see power prices possibly doubling within five years. He also anticipates the nation’s utility grid to become a “much more profound crisis” than it is today, posing a major threat to the nation’s overall electric reliability.
For Moore and NASDAQ-traded Acorn, the more trouble the better. Moore is putting together what analysts have described as an energy solutions holding company, the purpose of which is to invest in other companies whose businesses are designed to improve the reliability and/or reduce the environmental footprint of the electric power industry. In an interview, Moore said he is “still in the buying mode,” a war chest at the ready.
Moore said investors generally “still don’t really get” what Acorn’s business model is, and then described in detail three of Acorn’s core equity holdings in order to illustrate how he sees Acorn attacking the power industry’s reliability and environmental problems on several levels.
Acorn holds a reported 8.6% stake in Comverge Inc., a NASDAQ-traded firm that enters into contracts with utilities anxious to lessen the strain on their systems by reducing peak demand. Comverge does so by improving the energy efficiency of large power consumers through programmable thermostats and other power-saving equipment.
Acorn also has a reported 22.4% stake in Gridsense, which is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. Moore said Gridsense’s “smart transformer” enables a power transformer to run at above 100% of capacity, selling whatever electricity the operator doesn’t need into the grid, thereby helping to avoid blackouts while earning that operator a windfall profit. A third Acorn holding, CoaLogix, which Moore said is 85%-owned by Acorn, reduces the cost of coal-fired power plants’ environmental control equipment. Specifically, CoaLogix provides selective catalyst reduction (SCR) services, including a proprietary technology to regenerate catalyst.
Asked specifically what Acorn might invest in next, Moore said he is interested in putting together small engineering outfits into what he called a nuclear supply chain, providing needed engineering and other professional services that will be in high demand if the commercial nuclear power revival that’s been forecast gets off the ground.
For the quarter ended March 31, Acorn had an operating loss of $1.2 million on sales of $4.3 million. That compares with a prior-year operating loss of $655,000 on sales of $1 million.
