Clean energy is one of the biggest stories in markets, and one of the hardest to own well. A lot of the profit in the sector is a tax credit, a tariff wall or a subsidy, and Chinese overcapacity sets module prices below cost for almost everyone.
So we scored the 60 largest companies across the three main clean energy ETFs, $TAN, $ICLN and $PBD, which together hold 186 different names. The 60 make up 72% of their combined weight. Seven criteria, ranked within six business-model tables: solar manufacturing, wind, utilities and hydro, developers, hydrogen and batteries, and biofuels and heat pumps.
Three criteria carry the idea behind this one:
Moat: hydro dams, regulated concessions and a handful of real technology and scale leaders. Module, cell and wafer making doesn’t have one.
Inflation: whether earnings move with the price level, like indexed tariffs and wholesale power, or not, like long fixed-price contracts.
Policy independence: how much of the business still stands without subsidies, tax credits and tariff protection.
And as always, every P/E is our own. No adjusted EBITDA, no “adjusted EPS”.
