Solon AG, Germany's first listed solar company back in 1998, has just bought a 10 kilowatt hour energy storage device from Canadian firm, VRB Power Systems.

This is an important development because Germany's solar market has hitherto only been grid-connected, without any local energy storage backup. Returns are generated by feeding the solar power straight back into the grid rather than using it yourself.

It's always been my view that this is a more efficient way to use solar power - at source with the batteries and use the grid as a backup.

Q Cells has set it's target IPO range at between 29 and 34 euros per share for its listing on October 5th.

This is a bellweather IPO for German solar companies - the first large one since the inconclusive National Elections. The question is, can Germany's solar stock boom continue?

Ersol Solar Energy's IPO suggests that it can. At the time of writing, the shares are 10 times over-subscribed.

Solarparc AG yesterday went up by nearly 10%. The company which plans, project manages, builds and runs solar and wind power stations, was as low as 1.95 euros a share, 12 months ago.

It's odd though that a company that changed its name from Windwelt AG to Solarparc still has 38 megawatts of installed windpower and 2.27 megawatts of solar.

The name is more than a little misleading !

As talked about here before, Germany has quite a number of solar power companies whose subsidies were at political risk from a new CDU/CSU and FDP government. Now though that the election results have come through, it seems unlikely that even if Frau Merkel has just pipped Schroeder at the winning post, she will have any room to put through unpopular reforms.

That's why SAG Solarstrom, Solarworld, SolarFabrik, Sunways, Phoenix Sonnenstrom, Solar Millennium, Conergy and Solon can all point to a successful couple of days on the German stockmarket now coming to terms with the election stalemate.

SunPower, a company owned by NYSE listed Cypress Semiconductor Corp is planning an IPO on the Nasdaq in Q4 2005.

The filing provides for an offering of up to $100 million of common stock, plus an option granted to the underwriters to purchase up to an additional $15 million to cover over-allotments.

And according to this article, there are quite a few other solar companies also interested in IPOs - QCells,  ErSol Solar Energy AG and sources at wafer maker PV Crystalox Solar AG and component and systems maker Renewable Energy Corp AS (REC) all said they were considering listing in Europe.