2004 was a busy year globally for both the wind and solar industries. But it's worth stacking them up against each other to do a basic comparison;

2004 - Newly Installed Capacity

Solar - 927 Megawatts

Wind - 7,976 Megawatts

2004 - Industry turnover in Billions of US Dollars

Solar - 6.5

Wind - 9.79

The quick conclusions are then;

1. Wind per installed megawatt is much cheaper than solar
2. Solar production is way behind wind in added capacity
3. Solar is not far behind wind in turnover

However, I suspect that in turnover in billions of dollars, solar power will overtake wind power possibly as soon as 2006. But for the investor, the paradox is that there are many more pure solar play stocks than wind stocks. And I expect this to continue . . .

Solarparc AG, formerly known as Windwelt AG prior to 22nd June, has just developed a solar PV systems that follows the sun, increasing power output by up to 30%.

The name change by the way - which in English translates from Wind World to Solar Park -is to represent the strategic future of the company. They believe that there is far more of a future for them in the solar business. Yesterday, Solarparc AG closed at 16 Euros.

As I remarked in an earlier post, rising oil prices are a driver for alternative energy. So I feel vindicated when John Rice, CEO of GE Energy, the world's 2nd largest manufacturer of wind turbines says

“We’ve had some large wind customers tell us that at a natural gas price of $5 per (million Btus), that wind is competitive without the production tax credit . . .That’s always a function of the actual project. But at $5, you’re in the hunt, no question.”

So windpower is already cost competitive in parts of the United States, depending on the price of electricity in that state. A recent Financial Times article mentioned that the cost of the most efficient US windpower was $48 a megawatt hour and the cost of a megawatt hour of gas was between $36 and $72.

GE of course, is a massive New York Stock Exchange listed company, so its wind turbine division, despite making $2 Billion of annual sales don't actually amount to much out of their enormous total - over $130 Billion in 2003 alone. Still, their purchase of Enron Wind in 2002 for just $325m looks smarter every day.

If ever you want to get a quick idea of how much windpower a given country has, check out this page.

In doing so, you'll quickly see why Denmark has the world's largest - and copenhagen stock exchange listed - wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas. Today it capitalizes at over $20 Billion.

It would also indicate that the sleeping giants in windpower are the USA and . . . China . . . if they built just a quarter as much as Denmark has per head, then few could dispute that windpower would be at the start of a very long boom.

Plambeck Neue Energien AG, has just surpassed a stock target of EUR 0.95 set by a recent BUY upgrade by First Berlin by today closing at 0.96, 10.34 % up on the day. Plambeck is principally a wind company, developing and managing wind farms. Although the company also has much smaller interests in biomass and solar thermal energy.

The recently published half-yearly report showed a major increase in turnover from EUR 12.5 m to this year's 19.7 m.

Most of the prime wind sites in Germany have been taken and Plambeck is sitting quite pretty with just under 500 MW in onshore capacity. But Plambeck's future expansion will have to be offshore at sea and through its French partner, Ventura in France. And both of these have yet to become a major part of the business.