The Name Is Not Illuminating

Energy Central - energyblogs.com : October 02 2009

By Bill Opalka

NTR plc is an Irish holding company with a name that offers no clue to where its recent and future interests lie. But it’s determined to make its presence in the U.S. renewable energy markets known. “We’re an infrastructure company that’s been around for 30 years and after our first 20, all we had to show for it were two toll roads,” says CEO Jim Barry. I caught up to him as he was departing Brussels, where he is part of a European Union working group on sustainability.

The company changed direction about a decade ago, when it started shifting its businesses to address climate change, energy independence and sustainability. And that invariably meant an entry into renewable energy, first in the United Kingdom, and eventually the U.S. NTR made an initial commitment in 1999 of $5 million to the wind business. Less than a decade later, its Airtricity North America wind power unit, which has major projects in Texas and other states, and the Irish counterpart, were sold off in two pieces in 2007 and 2008 for a total of $2.7 billion. When I pointed out he had sold at the top of the market, Barry chuckled, “I’d like to think I was that brilliant.” But the company hasn’t always had unqualified successes, evidenced by its failed biodiesel venture in Germany.

Since then, the company has now taken major positions in sustainable businesses in the United States, deducing market saturation in Europe and significant opportunities here. Missouri-based Wind Capital Partners received a $150 million investment and has a 2,000-megawatt project pipeline in the Midwest, and its solar units, Stirling Energy Systems and Tessera Solar have received a combined $100 million.

NTR believes it excels in taking smaller businesses and building them into big players, which it intends with its latest wind venture. And Barry gets audibly excited when he talks about the concentrating solar systems in those business units. “We took a good, hard look at solar and want to drive a breakthrough in that technology,” he says.

And it has made other major investments in sustainable businesses here, including ethanol manufacturer Green Plains Renewable Energy, and recycling and waste management Greenstar North America. It still has significant investments in its historic Irish businesses of water, telecommunications, and yes, the initials it still uses today, from National Toll Roads.