Heretofore, the public solar markets have largely been a story of Germany, California and what some call condescendingly "Honorary Westerners", the Japanese.

So news of IPOs coming from China and Thailand smacks of a new wave, let's call it Solar 3.0. Solar 1.0 started with President Jimmy Carter and fizzled out rather like he did on the New York Marathon. Solar 2.0 was driven by Germany and Japan with their government sponsored solar roof programmes. Solar 3.0 involves lower cost manufacturing and silicon sourcing, whilst higher tech Western companies are looking at alternatives to silicon based technologies.

According to New Energy Finance, Zhejang Yuhui Solar is planning to raise $80 m on AIM this summer. Another Chinese company - CEEG Nanjing PV-tech also plans to raise capital and last but not least, the thai transformer maker Ekarat Engineering which has a small but burgeoing solar division, making 15 MW or 100,000 modules per year.

In recent years, I've often thought that alternative energy will only really come of age when Chinese manufacturing moves into it. The signs are that this is just starting to happen. Napoleon once said "Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will rock the world".

Well, here's to the Chinese rocking the world in alternative energy.