Repower Systems AG has just been upgraded to a buy by Deutsche Bank. This is because they anticipate a margin recovery to approximately 3% this year and to 5%-6% in 2007 and approximately 8% in 2008.

Excuse me if I don't think that's particularly impressive - not least in a booming industry. Nevertheless, the growth continues to be impressive, if not hugely profitable. And they are going to be the first wind company to mass produce the world's biggest turbine - a 5 MW model.

If you think that stage 2 of Europe's wind power development is going offshore, then large wind turbines made by Repower are going to have an outsize role. That's because offshore farms are very expensive to set up (say $2m an installed megawatt v. $1.3m for an onshore installed megawatt) but the larger turbine size makes it easier to recoup that investment.

In other words . . .

The bigger the turbine, the lower the maintenance costs per installed MW, the higher the ouput, the faster the payback.