Battery storage stars as Cleantech stocks trump broader market in 14-15

Cleantech is no longer a dirty word around financial markets. The Australian CleanTech Index has closed out the 2014-15 financial year with another solid month, outperforming the broader small stocks in market in June and the overall market for the full financial year, led by stocks in the energy efficiency and battery storage sector.

According to the latest Australian CleanTech Index performance report, over the fourth quarter of the 2015 fiscal year, the index recorded a loss of 7.5 per cent, compared to the S&P ASX200’s loss of 7.2 per cent, and the S&P ASX Small Ordinaries’ 4.4 per cent loss.

The market capitalisation of the 63 stocks in the Australian CleanTech Index was at $A17.4 billion, down from its March high of $18.9 billion, but up over three times from its low of $6.2 billion in July 2012, the report said.

But the Australian Efficiency & Storage Index – a cleantech sub-index of 16 ASX-listed companies ranging from the award winning LED and PV tech company Blueglass, to heat-to-power company Enerji, to Australian battery technology hopeful RedFlow – was the star performer for the FY, gaining 31 per cent.

As you can see in the table above, the Renewable Energy Index was the second-best performer for the year (29.5%), while the Australian Waste Index was the worst performer (-7.4%).

Other companies on the Australian Efficiency and Storage sub-index include Beacon Lighting Corp, Energy Action, Metro Performance Glass, EcoSave, Pro-Pac Packaging, Traffic Technologies, Gale Pacific, SECOS Group Ltd (Cardia BioPlastics), Nanosonics, Eden Energy, Galaxy Resources, Neometals and Orocobre.

Other than Redflow, the index’s three lithium miners – Galaxy Resources, Neometals & Orocobre – help make up the energy storage component of the list.

For the month of June, the largest gains in market capitalisation over the broader CleanTech Index were recorded by Energy Developments, Redflow and Australian Renewable Fuels, the report said; the greatest losses were recorded by Meridian Energy, Sims Metal Management and Mighty River Power.