I can't help you with a specific investment... you got better advice than I could give you from DI.  I think that an ETF would be a better way to go than buying a single company.

There is some political risk with alternative energy, for sure.  There is also a market risk that oil prices might drop, which could easily cause some drop in alternative energy stocks.  High oil prices are good for alternative energy and vice versa.

I'm afraid of taking a big investment in solar... I think that trading in these stocks might be a good thing, because the stocks are volatile.  This volatility should scare the passive buy-and-hold (for quite awhile, but not necessarily forever) investor, like me.

erryl

Germany - which has about half of the world's solar installations and is third behind Japan and China on solar cell production - may be adjusting industry subsidies downwards.  Don't know. 

Read HERE.  Just a "Heads up!" on GEX and other renewables plays.

Hi Mike,

Try this LINK to the German Environmental Ministry.  There are documents with the subsidy details (in English) that you can open there.  Unfortunately, I don't see anything concerning Merkel's proposed reductions.

Let us know if you find those somewhere.

Norbert 

Hi Norbert.

I poked around the German Ministry site but couldn't find the subsidy.  However after reading a dozen articles, I did find that the French subsidy was 0.55 euros/kwh [$0.80/kwh], California's going to subsidize at $0.39/kwh, and Washington [state] at $.55/kwh.  The German subsidy is apparently slightly less then France's.

Obviously, these subsidies are crazy.  This is no doubt why the NYT's didn't include the subsidy amount in their article.  It was "forgotten" on purpose.

I feel it's likely that in 10 years, PV solar power will be economical [due to high sunlight, low land cost, and/or  proximity to power user] in certain places like Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico etc.  But not Germany, not in this century.