Spruce Power (NYSE:SPRU) versus Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA) Head to Head Comparison

Spruce Power (NYSE:SPRU) and Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Volatility & Risk

Spruce Power has a beta of 1.19, suggesting that its share price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ormat Technologies has a beta of 0.9, suggesting that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

20.8% of Spruce Power shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.5% of Ormat Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 11.2% of Spruce Power shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Ormat Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Spruce Power and Ormat Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Spruce Power	1	0	0	0	1.00
Ormat Technologies	0	6	8	0	2.57

Ormat Technologies has a consensus price target of $130.75, suggesting a potential upside of 37.45%. Given Ormat Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Ormat Technologies is more favorable than Spruce Power.

Profitability

This table compares Spruce Power and Ormat Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Spruce Power	-6.76%	-5.94%	-0.87%
Ormat Technologies	10.66%	6.61%	2.75%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Spruce Power and Ormat Technologies”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Spruce Power	$108.49 million	0.29	-$26.03 million	($0.45)	-3.62
Ormat Technologies	$989.54 million	5.91	$123.90 million	$2.03	46.86

Ormat Technologies has higher revenue and earnings than Spruce Power. Spruce Power is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ormat Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Ormat Technologies beats Spruce Power on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Spruce Power

Spruce Power Holding Corporation owns and operates distributed solar energy assets in the United States. The company provides subscription-based services for homeowners and businesses to own and maintain rooftop solar and battery storage. It offers its subscription-based services to approximately 75,000 customers. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

About Ormat Technologies

Ormat Technologies, Inc. engages in the geothermal and recovered energy power business in the United States, Indonesia, Kenya, Turkey, Chile, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, New Zealand, Honduras, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Electricity, Product, and Energy Storage. The Electricity segment develops, builds, owns, and operates geothermal, solar photovoltaic, and recovered energy-based power plants; and sells electricity. The Product segment designs, manufactures, and sells equipment for geothermal and recovered energy-based electricity generation; and provides services relating to the engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance of geothermal and recovered energy-based power plants. This segment serves contractors; and owners and operators of interstate natural gas pipelines, gas processing plants, and cement plants, as well as companies in other energy-intensive industrial processes. The Energy Storage segment offers battery energy storage systems and related services. Ormat Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada.