Looked at crudely, the world's solar pv industry is mass manufacture in Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent in China and the USA for module sales and installation in Germany, Japan and the USA. By and large, when you strip out China, most of the production tends to be for the domestic marketplace.

The wind industry I would argue is a lot more globalised.

Take today's news of 2 Big orders for Vestas and Repower Systems in Greece and Japan.

A Danish company selling to Greece and a German company selling to Japan. There's no equivalent kind of interplay going on the international solar scene on that scale.

An exception though might be the extraordinary size and success of Renewable Energy Corp from Norway - the world's biggest alternative energy company by market capitalisation.

Evergreen Solar ought to be enjoying the solar boom going on right now. Yet last week's results are not going down too well.

With their string ribbon low silicon technology, they should be well-positioned to emerge as a front-runner supplier, given the current capacity constraints in high-grade silicon supply. And yet the curiosity is that high silicon prices have not driven demand to seek low or non-silicon solar sources like Evergreen's or thin-film / amorphous pv, made supposedly cheaper through a continuous manufacturing run.

So I would like to controversially suggest that the real vilain in this story - why solar prices aren't falling - is government; internationally, solar pv support by government has exceeded the benefits in investing in low or zero silicon-based alternatives that have all the potential to bring down solar prices.

A classic unintended consequence of government interference if ever there was one.

Renewable Energy Corp - has just posted an 89% improvement on Q4 to the previous year.

As per this same article, the company cited . . . both sales and earnings are primarily being driven by successfully implemented expansion projects and improved productivity', as well as favourable market conditions.

With a USD 12 Billion market cap., REC is by far the largest solar firm in the world.

When the solar boom comes to an end - as it must - there will be a flight to quality. And compared to some of the other players out there, REC would look like one of the most solid solar companies of all.

Aleo Solar can now point to new contracts with Gamesa and Endesa in Spain worth €15 million. This is impressive for a German solar firm which not normally associated with venturing outside of their cushy, high-subsidy home market.

What is crucial as well is that Aleo Solar have matched this demand for modules with a cell supply contract with Q-Cells that runs until 2012. For solar pv module manufacturers like Aleo, long-term silicon contracts are the key to ending silicon volatility.

By 2012, I suspect the price of silicon will have finally started to fall and they will have gently ridden out the worst part of the silicon storm.

No question who was the winning stock today - Solar2 AG up 33%. That is meant to be expressed as solar squared by the way - the Germans would call it "Solarhoch Zwei" - hence their homepage (no english I'm afraid) www.solarhoch2.de .

Since going public at EUR 3.90 per share near the top of the market on the 3rd of April last year, after it's initial bounce to just over EUR 5, it has had a pretty miserable time decending below 2 and pretty much staying there. According to the company's press section on the website, anonymous allegations were earlier made over the company's transations with Plambeck Neue Energien AG and it's subsidiaries. But since preliminary investigations were dropped on January 12th against board members, Mr Brikey and Mr Wind, this cloud has been lifted.

The company is unusual in the solar sector, because it provides solar pv and solar thermal systems.

Trina Solar has just signed a $120m contract with a Korean polysilicon supplier to provision them with feedstock from 2009.

This comes after a recent story in Red Herring which raised questions about margins and silicon shortages for Chinese solar IPOs. So signing a long-term contract for silicon supply has to look good for them.