It's a curious twist of fate that many of Japan's largest companies - the Keiretsu - have become major players in a relatively tiny power industry - solar. As I wrote here a few years ago, the Keiretsu were responsible for 45% of global production. Since then, matters have changed and Germany is driving the demand for the global solar market.

So news that Sanyo, which competes with Sharp and Germany's Q-Cells will spend about 9 billion yen in the business year starting next April and 10 billion yen in the following year to boost its annual capacity to 350 megawatts from the current 165 megawatts could be seen as a solar fightback by the Japanese.

Looked at in very crude terms; Germany, China and Japan - these 3 countries are the current and future driving forces behind solar production. Germany is where the demand is, Japan is where a large part of the silicon will come from and China will eventually become the production hub for the world. In a few short years, the solar industry has changed completely. I expect this to happen again over the next few years too.