08.08.2011 (682 Days Ago)
| Title | FDEI | ||
| Country | United States |
Fidelis Energy Inc. FDEI Fidelis Energy Inc. 6399 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 507 Los Angeles, CA 90048 Tel: (323) 782-1460 Fax: (800) 937-2186 Email
Company Overview
The United States currently relies heavily on coal, oil, and natural gas for its energy. These fossil fuels are nonrenewable, finite resources that will eventually dwindle, becoming too expensive or too environmentally damaging to retrieve. In contrast, renewable energy resources such as solar energy are constantly replenished and will never run out.
At Fidelis, they recognize that a “green” wave of emerging environmental regulations, and government-wide “green” initiatives, are changing the way consumers, the commercial sector, and states, counties and municipalities, do business. Governments all over the world are enacting tax credits and other financial incentives for the adoption of green, solar solutions.
They are building strategic partnerships with companies that are developing cutting-edge microgeneration technologies and solutions. By harnessing the power of the sun, they're helping consumers and businesses generate their own clean power, reduce carbon emissions, and become part of the global energy solution.
Business Model
Fidelis Energy Inc. is active throughout the entire solar energy value chain as such an integrated business model ensures the greatest value creation for the shareholders. In a solar energy project, the highest increase of value measured in percentages is achieved during the development stage. Fidelis is also active during the operational stage because this will enable the Company to achieve stable income and cash flows, which in turn is a prerequisite for building new capacity.
Fidelis Energy acquires its production capacity through:
• In-house development of projects from the initial stage to operational projects. This development process most often takes place in collaboration with local partners;
• Acquisition of development projects that the Company completes in-house.
Fidelis Energy’s core competencies are:
• Evaluation of projects;
• Management of development processes;
• Financing solutions.
These core competencies are handled by a permanent organization. Fidelis has chosen to outsource other assignments, either because it is not profitable for the Company itself to maintain in-house expertise in these areas or because the assignments are complex and require external assessment. Experienced local developers and local advisers with in-depth industry know-how and a large network are some of Fidelis Energy’s most important partners. As the level of activity rises, the Company will expand its organization, priming it to meet the Company's goals while optimizing the profitability of each individual project.
Strategy
The Company's aim is to further expand its activities to become a leading developer, constructor and operator of mid-sized wind energy projects in Europe. The main elements of Fidelis Energy’s strategy are as follows:
• Fidelis operates in the field of independent electricity generation using renewable energy sources.
• Fidelis focuses its activities on projects primarily between 50-100 MW. Such projects are typically outside the scope of activity of the larger market players, such as national utility companies.
• Fidelis Energy intends to maintain a significant project pipeline with a minimum of 600-900 MW under planning or development across the Company's markets to create the prerequisites for future growth.
Focus On Attractive High Growth Markets
Fidelis Energy’s strategy is to focus on a number of carefully selected markets that have favorable solar conditions, a need to increase their renewable energy generation capacity, the political will to promote solar energy, and existing or expected attractive settlement prices for solar energy. The Company's goal in its selected markets is to rapidly establish a substantial portfolio of development projects and operating plants.
In the short-term, the Company intends to invest in exploring new markets, particularly in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, in order to identify areas for expansion.
Objectives
Fidelis Energy’s overall objectives include:
• Completion of the Indian project in 2010 and thereby having an installed production capacity of approximately 200 MW by the end of 2010.
• Having an installed production capacity of approximate 600 MW by the end of 2011.
• Maintaining a substantial development pipeline of at least 600-900 MW.
• Installing 250 MW annually in 2010 and the following years.
• Achieving a reasonable return to the shareholders through continuous share price gains.
Market Demand
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, worldwide demand for electricity is expected to rise from 14.3 billion megawatt hours in 2002 to 26.0 billion MWh in 2025. Non-renewable energy sources such as natural gas, oil and coal will be hard-pressed to fill the demand, especially with the rise in oil and gas prices expected to continue.
Renewable energy resources, such as solar power, will become increasingly important sources of energy throughout the world, helping to establish ongoing European and American markets for Fidelis products.
Factors contributing to market demand include an increase in government environmental awareness and regulations limiting emissions from fossil fuels. Solar energy addresses such environmental concerns as it consumes no fuel and produces no air, water or noise pollution. Also, a growing number of countries have established incentive programs for the development of solar and other renewable energy sources.
Another issue is the narrowing cost differential between solar and conventional energy sources—the average price of PV cells and modules has decreased by 25% from 1995 to 2002 and is expected to continue to decrease as the result of improvements in process technologies and economies of scale.
Fidelis' management team will work to make the most of the opportunities presented by these market conditions. Already, the company has made significant progress in its development:
• in the process of investing $5 million for expansion;
• recruiting a world-class team of solar researchers and scientists;
• beginning infrastructure construction at the 75,000 square foot factory in China;
• acquiring key manufacturing equipment;
• establishing the materials purchasing and sales arm of the company in California.
Technology
Their patent pending technology incorporates a process that is conducive to manufacturing using a batch process. This is possible because the solar cell cylinder itself replaces the necessity to use expensive vacuum chambers during production. They believe this approach is the most expeditious and cost-effective alternative to development of manufacturing capability. Consequently, since the batch processing approach is highly labor intensive, Fidelis has executed a definitive agreement with Ling Dou Manufacturing, Inc. (LDM) to establish a pilot manufacturing facility in China due to the fact that the only independent mine and refining operations for Cadmium/Tellurium production known to the Company in the world is located in China. In addition, over 30 companies in China have announced refining capacity for Silicon. Cadmium-Tellurium and Silicon are some of the raw materials that can be used in their production process.
Their technology uses a ceramic sleeve as a receptacle for the various materials used for a solar cell. The ceramic sleeve replaces typical equipment such as expensive vacuum chambers thereby permitting the interchangeability of materials. Production processes using a vacuum chamber in many cases cannot interchange materials because of contamination issues. They believe that by utilizing the technology, if a shortage of one type of material occurs, a shift can be made quickly and economically to a more cost effective but complementary material. The materials that can be used in these cells goes from soft materials like Cadmium-Tellurium to hard materials like Silicon. A recently published independent report by a Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology determined that light trapping was increased by 35% by wave guides they placed into photovoltaic cells. This was accomplished by placing clear crystal particles as waveguides within the solar cell's layered or stacked semiconductor materials. They believe their technology offers a number of significant advantages in light trapping efficiencies and certain production economies compared to current technologies. They believe their technology can increase light trapping even further than the MIT method by inter-dispersing these clear crystal particles in a random manner. In addition, these wave guides allow even more layers of photovoltaic materials to be put down. The wave guides bring the light down even further than the few microns it can now travel in most materials. They believe these ceramic sleeve solar cells with wave guides lend themselves to ideal cells for use in a concentrator system and other specialty applications.
How The Technology Works
The Company's photovoltaic cells consist of:
An initial semiconductor layer, comprised of N type semiconductor material having a top surface and a bottom surface. Light-transmitting particles are interspersed within the N type semiconductor material.
A second semiconductor layer, consisting of P type semiconductor material having a top surface and a bottom surface. Light-transmitting particles are interspersed within the P type semiconductor material. The top surface of the second layer is in direct physical and electrical contact with the bottom surface of the first layer to form an N-P junction.
The generation of electrical current from the lower N-P junctions of a stacked multi-layer photovoltaic cell results from the transmission of light through each semiconductor layer to the lower semiconductor layers. As a result, photovoltaic cells are produced which exhibit greater current-generating capacity for a given surface area of sunlight exposure.
The technology utilizes light-transmitting materials reduced to a powder form, typically through grinding the material to a size of 5 micrometers to 150 micrometers, followed by a further reduction in the particle size to 400 to 800 nanometers.
A wave guide carries light through the cell. This is achieved by exciting metallic structures that cause the conduction electrons to oscillate. Conduction electrons improve the absorption and emission of light from thin planar semiconductor layers by coupling the light with the wave guide modes of the semiconductor layer. Enhancing absorption through the use of conduction electrons also avoids the increase in surface recombination that occurs with conventional light-trapping methods.
The wave guide mode concentrates electrical potential in the cell. The material and amount of layers determines voltage while amperage is determined by particle size. The multiple stacked solar cell and wave guide mode enables sunlight- exposed conversion areas to be maximized by shifting the orientation from horizontal to vertical.
In addition, the technology enables PV cells to be packaged in any desired physical shape and with a reduced overall surface area such as cubes or elongated tubular structures designed to fit within specific size and shape constraints. This design flexibility greatly reduces the difficulty and costs of shipping, storing, deploying, and securing large solar module arrays.
Projects
Spain - Fidelis has acquired an 8% stake in ASDR Barranca Solar, which owns a 2MW producing photovoltaic solar facility located in Spain.
India - A $25 million project with Esar Solar Power Pvt. Ltd. (ESP), a Jaipur-based company, to develop and construct the first of several solar energy projects located in the Thar Desert near Jaisalmer, India. This 5 megawatts (MW) project is part of a larger proposed 100 megawatts (MW).
South Africa - Long-term solar module supply agreement with TinSol Energy (pty) Ltd. (TSEL), Johannesburg, South Africa. Fidelis Energy will supply 207 megawatts (MW) of PV Solar modules to TSEL for use in the development and build-out of several solar parks in Africa.
Greece - Installation and operation of approximately 10 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) systems on large-scale manufacturing facilities located throughout Greece.
Management
The technical, operational and financial acumen of these individuals form the solid backbone that has brought Fidelis Energy to its prominent position in the photovoltaic’s field, and will continue to support the advancements to come.
James Poole, President & CEO
Mr. Poole is an entrepreneur with a successful record of establishing technology firms in the United States and China. Prior to joining Fidelis Energy Inc., he was the founder and CEO of Solarius Concepts Inc., a leading energy-saving technology company. Successful businesses founded by Mr. Poole include GeoStars International Inc, Inc., Plateon Energy and Virgin & Brick Technologies, Inc. Mr. Poole is strong advocate of clean energy in the U.S. as well as in Asia.
Larry Butler, CFO
Mr. Butler has worked for Asia Pacific Ventures (APV) as junior partner for the past two years, where he focused on alternative energy and environmental protection sector investments. Hong Kong-based APV is one of the most active venture capital firms in the country, managing committed capital in excess of $100 million. Mr. Butler’s background includes a solid understanding and commitment to renewable energy along with strong relationships and ties specific to the solar energy industry. Prior to APV, Mr. Butler was an executive Vice President of Excess Quantum Financial Advisory, and served as a senior associate of the corporate finance department. Mr. Butler has numerous years of experience in providing investment banking and M&A services to energy companies.
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