Investment trust insider on HydrogenOne – James Carthew: HydrogenOne needs to get a move on
Last week I looked at Blackfinch Renewable European Income (BRET) which is the latest fund aiming to enter the renewable energy sector. The last fund to launch in that area was HydrogenOne Capital Growth (HGEN), which raised just over £107m in July. This was well short of its £250m target, but its shares are currently trading at a 15.7% premium, so there is a good chance of expanding it. In fact, since the company has powers to issue more shares, I think it should be getting on with this as a way of moderating the premium, which is looking excessive.
HGEN is the first London-listed investment fund dedicated to clean hydrogen. Part of the attraction of hydrogen is its potential role as the missing link in a couple of awkward problems presented by the need to tackle climate change. One of these is the impracticality of using battery power to fuel heavy transport – HGVs and ships, for example. The other is energy storage, where batteries and pumped storage are useful for relatively short duration power supply, but hydrogen could complement these.
In addition, hydrogen is used in a variety of industrial processes and the way that it is produced currently adds to the world’s greenhouse gas problem.
Ineos, which currently produces 300,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year, agreed to cornerstone the HGEN issue as part of its drive to reduce its carbon emissions…. read more here