New Issues Examined

As a boy, Klaus-Michael Koch worked at his father’s company, sewing and welding and getting busy with all the other things industrious German Jungen are supposed to do. A few decades later and it has all paid off as Klaus is chief executive of the company – called Hightex – that now makes polymer membranes for use in the construction of many ultra-modern buildings. For instance, the now-famous Mound Stand at Lord’s cricket ground and the Centre Court at Wimbledon are two renowned British venues using the material. Further afield, the roofs of the Bangkok and Munich airports are adorned with the stuff, as is the impressive Berlin Olympic Stadium.

While many of the world’s leading ‘signature’ architects are already using the material and associated technology, Hightex’s main aim, says Koch, is to convince a wider base of architects of the possibilities membranes provide.

‘Membranes have many advantages over traditional construction materials,’ advises Koch. ‘They are lighter, they can be transparent and they allow many more technical variations.’ Hightex is a leading player in this field but it is its acquisition of SolarNext, a company looking to combine membranes with solar panels, that makes Hightex even more worthy of note.

SolarNext was purchased as part of the company’s reversal into cash-rich AIM shell West 175, in conjunction with a £1.5 million Teather & Greenwood-sponsored fundraising. It has technology that it believes can be 20 times better than normal solar panels. This is not simply hyperbole. The combination of transparent membranes with a special Fresnel lens (as used to make lighthouse beams go further) concentrates the sun to the power of ‘20 suns’ when it hits the panels, which, as a result, are 20 times smaller than traditional panels. They are therefore cheaper than standard solar roofing and go some way to resolving the problematic issue that, to generate sufficient energy to be worthwhile, panels have needed to be very large. Not so now, it seems.

This market is distinctly embryonic (Koch says ‘we have no competition’) but architects always hanker for something new and Hightex has a number of projects in tender. Koch expects profits from SolarNext in two years and has other ideas (including solar cooling and solar desalination) up his sleeve.

Interestingly, on the company’s diverse advisory board sits serial small cap investor John Gunn, something of an expert in fast-growing intellectual property plays.

AIM goes green
A few esoteric green energy plays have sprouted up on the market too.

One that interested me recently is Energetix – founded by former BNFL man Adrian Hutchings and chaired by Alan Aubrey, the CEO of university tech transfer expert IP Group. It has patents on products built around the ingenious reversal of technology used in refrigeration, turning compressors into ‘expanders’, thereby providing power. A ‘prominent boiler manufacturer’ is talking to Energetix to produce a super-efficient boiler that also creates electricity and which could win a slice of the £8 billion European boiler market. Energetix raised £5.4 million at 40p and has traded up to 47.5p, capitalising it at £21.4 million.

Then there’s Zenergy Power, which has developed efficient devices that use an electric wire that transports electricity with practically no losses – unlike copper wire. Zenergy is looking at replacing copper wire in electric power lines and a host of other devices.

Elsewhere, ReneSola is turning silicon waste into silicon wafers for the solar power industry and is already making an impression after its $50 million fundraising. Profits were up elevenfold to £3.4 million at the interim stage, sending the shares up 56p to 94.5p to value the company at £94.5 million. Founder Li Xian Shou says the company has almost doubled its production capacity with 20 new furnaces, taking its total to 36, and has a further 18 in trial production.

Looking to launch on AIM soon, with a massive $204 million fundraising brokered by Seymour Pierce, is Cayman Islands-registered China Hydroelectric Corporation, set up to acquire hydroelectric projects in the People's Republic.