Following a couple of IPOs over the last week, here they are;

PV Crystalox - a company in what I regard as the sweetspot of the solar business, a manufacturer of silicon ingots and wafers

and

Solaria Energia - a Spanish PV company, which disappointingly, only carries the Spanish language on its website. There has been a bit of a buzz about Spain becoming the next Germany in solar power - that's why several German firms were keen to open subsidiaries there over the last year or so. And yet, you have to think that a Spanish supplier ought to have more opportunity to exploit that over a German one. Let's see. A friend of mine incidentally with a large holiday home in Spain, was advised not to install solar pv panels, because they would be stolen. If that's really the case, the millions of holiday homes (800,000 built last year alone) there will not be a market and the growth will most likely have to be Spanish-led or more ways than one.

News that a new Chinese solar stock, Jetion Holdings, is planning an IPO on AIM made me think about the routes recent Chinese alternative energy floatations have been taking.

It does appear that AIM is popular for those who will capitalize at less than USD 500 m - in the case of Jetion Holdings, their valuation would be in the region of USD 220 m. Meanwhile, Yingli Green Energy, who today capitalise at USD 1.5 billion, took the American Depository Recept route.

And Suntech Power Holdings, AEI's largest stock by market cap. has a full listing on the NYSE, capitalises at over USD 5 billion.

I think it's all about costs and the smaller you are, the less able you are to absorb them. So I think it's fair to say that you could rank these exchanges - on costs alone - like this;

1. Full listing - NYSE/ Nasdaq - most expensive
2. ADR IPO - on NYSE / Nasdaq - less expensive
3. AIM IPO - least expensive

Ok, ok, I haven't included some of the other European or Canadian markets - but it does generally appear that if you're a Chinese company looking to IPO, it's London or New York.