Two hot solar-power plays to buy now

The renewable energy industry has been underperforming recently as government subsidies have been cut and investors have worried about oversupply. But professional investor Joseph Wat thinks the sector has been unfairly neglected, and there is still plenty of potential for profit. Here, he picks two of favourite solar power plays.

Each week, a professional investor tells MoneyWeek where he'd put his money now. This week: Joseph Wat of Atlantis Investment Management.

Clean, renewable energy sources are big news and the hottest of these is solar power. Photovoltaic (PV) panels contain semiconductor wafers, usually made of silicon, which absorb the photons from the sun's rays and react by producing a flow of electricity. Globally, the capacity of grid-connected solar PV panels has grown by an average of 60% per annum for the last ten years, increasing one-hundredfold since 2000. And it's not just eco-friendly individuals who are responsible for the increase. One quarter of this capacity is in utility-scale power plants (200 kilowatts or higher).

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