에너지

2023년 재생 에너지 급락

게시일 2023년 10월 17일

업데이트일 2026년 6월 3일

작성자

Jonathan Schramm

Securities.io를 Google의 선호 소스에 추가

지난 몇 달 동안 재생 에너지 투자자들은 꽤 어려운 시기를 겪었습니다. 주가 급락, 해상 풍력 경매 취소, 그리고 감액이 우울한 분위기를 조성했습니다.

무슨 일이 일었을까요? 왜 그럴까요? 그리고 앞으로 상황은 어떻게 전개될까요?

잔인한 조정

The largest clean energy ETF, QCLN, has suffered an almost 50% decline since its peak in 2021.

QCLN 가격 차트

This correction is even more brutal in some sub-sectors of the clean energy industry, with the situation especially painful for the wind industry. For example, the leading offshore wind operator Orsted (D2G.DE ) stock (DNNGY) is now priced below its 2017 IPO level (excluding dividends). The largest wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas (VWDRY), is back to its 2008 price level (excluding dividends).

재생 에너지가 에너지 믹스에서 비중을 확대하고 에너지 시스템의 미래로 널리 인식됨에도 불구하고, 이는 많은 투자자들을 놀라게 했습니다.

원인의 수렴

폭풍 바람

The first problem in the renewable energy sector started with a profit warning from Siemens Energy (ENR.SW ) (ENR.DE ) in 2023년 6월. Quality problems in its Gamesa branch meant that some turbine engines would need to be replaced much sooner than expected, hurting the company’s profits. This led to a sudden drop of 36% in the stock price.

2023년 8월 Orsted가 미국 프로젝트에서 문제를 경고하면서 나쁜 소식이 계속 쌓였습니다. 일부 프로젝트는 완전히 취소될 수도 있습니다.

This created a wave of concern in the industry, with many offshore auctions for wind projects meeting little enthusiasm or even failing entirely, like in the UK in 2023년 9월.

인플레이션

Besides technological issues at Siemens, inflation is the root cause of the sudden wave of troubles in the wind industry.

Projects calculated a few years ago are now facing increasing costs on labor and equipment, as well as supply chain damage by the pandemic. So, what made sense economically in 2020 or 2021 might not make sense anymore in 2023.

금리 상승

Compounding on the inflation issue, central banks all over the world have raised interest rates to put inflation under control. This surprised market participants and industrial companies, after 3 decades of declining rates, marked only by temporary and short-lived spikes.

출처: Chartstorm

This means that huge capital-intensive projects, like renewable energy, are now facing financing costs much higher than in the previous decade.

This can also hurt companies that need to refinance their debt load, a common situation for fast-growing renewable companies. As a result, July to 2023년 9월 saw a record outflow of capital from clean energy ETFs.

This is a more generalized problem affecting the energy sector, including solar farms, utilities, and solar panel manufacturers.

그리드 포화 및 저장

While the previous factors are mostly out of the control of the industry, one additional growing issue is starting to hurt renewable energy. Power grids have been designed around fossil fuel-based power generation (and hydro + nuclear power). This means that the intermittency of renewables can become a growing issue in the larger part of the grid they represent.

This is supposed to be mitigated by utility-scale energy storage. The problem is that investments in this sector have lagged behind, resulting in occasional renewable energy waste. Similarly, in periods of low wind or sun intensity, the lack of energy storage capacity forces grid operators to fall back on fossil fuels like gas or coal.

This is getting corrected, with a +75% storage capacity growth between 2021 and 2022. But this might take a few years to catch up and weigh on the renewable sector as a whole until it is solved.

출처: IEA

이제는 어떻게 될까?

우려의 벽

Some issues are temporary but serious in the short term. The durability of older models of wind turbines might not be as good as initially forecasted. This is for sure true for the Siemens Gamesa turbines, but this is now a concern for the rest of the industry as well.

Grid saturation and the mismatch between demand and production of electricity is likely to stay for a few years until energy storage has caught up with the renewable revolution. This might have different effects for different sub-sectors:

친환경 유틸리티는 생산을 제한하거나 에너지 저장에 더 많이 투자해야 하기 때문에 몇 년간 수익이 감소할 수 있습니다.
풍력 터빈 및 태양광 패널 제조업체는 목표 시장을 전략적으로 선택해야 합니다.
에너지 저장 기업(운영자 및 제조업체 모두)는 전례 없는 급증을 경험할 수 있습니다.

None of these problems are unsolvable, but they will not be solved overnight either.

장기적인 높은 비용

The important thing to consider is that energy generation of any kind is a capital-intensive industry. This is true for renewable, as well as for fossil fuels or nuclear.

따라서 사용되는 기술에 관계없이 앞으로 전력 생산이 더 비용이 많이 들 가능성이 높습니다. 최소한 인플레이션과 높은 금리가 새로운 정상으로 자리 잡는 한은 그렇습니다.

다른 투자 부문도 이 거시경제 환경에 의해 타격을 받았습니다; 예를 들어, 2023년 10월 미국 전체 유틸리티 부문이 3.5년 최저 수준으로 떨어졌습니다. 미국 채권과 같은 “안전한” 투자 수단도 “역사상 가장 급격한 하락을 겪었습니다”라고 Bank of America (BAC ) 가 전했습니다.

이는 화석 연료 산업에서도 마찬가지입니다. 셰일 오일은 생산량이 크게 증가하지 않으며, 비용 상승을 면밀히 주시하고 주주에게 자본을 반환하는 것을 선호합니다. 현재 미국에는 504대의 시추 장비만 운영되고 있습니다, 이는 2014년 셰일 붐 정점의 1,609대와 비교됩니다.

The higher costs are likely to last, as more expensive energy (of all kinds) will likely contribute to keeping inflation high. Other factors like geopolitical chaos (as sadly illustrated by the wars in Ukraine and now Israel), deglobalization, and unionization will also be contributing to keeping inflation higher for longer.

지속적인 기술 진보

The renewable revolution was made possible thanks to continuous solar and wind technology progress. This has caused a collapse of renewable energies’ costs, making them competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear, with solar costs down 90% in 10 years.

현재 기술 덕분에 비용이 감소하는 추세가 인플레이션으로 인한 비용 상승에 의해 상쇄되고 있습니다. 그러나 이것이 재생 기술의 진보가 멈췄다는 의미는 아닙니다.

For example, the most innovative companies with cheaper or more efficient solar panels, like First Solar (FSLR ) (FSLR), could be among the big winners in the sector in the long term.