TPI Composites – A Wind Energy Stock

Solar energy seems to dominate the headlines as the “clean energy source” which investors stand to benefit the most from. While solar has taken a hit lately, clean energy promises to be the way forward and arguably may be contributing to the utter demise of the coal industry lately. While solar continues to sound promising, we’ve often wondered about wind energy.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council,  the record number of wind power installations in 2015 brought the total installed global capacity of wind energy to 433 GW at the end of 2015 surpassing nuclear energy for the first time. Wind energy has seen +25% CAGR growth over the past 15 years as seen below:

Isn’t that incredible growth? We had no idea the wind energy market was taking off like that. So how does this number compare to solar energy? In 2015, solar energy capacity was estimated to be around 200 GW or just half that of wind power. With wind power looking to be the dominant clean energy source, where’s all the money to be had for investors?

As we noted in a past article on the IPO of wind energy company Northern Power Systems, there aren’t many pure-play opportunities for retail investors to get exposure to wind power. In fact, the “IPO” of NPS turned out to be a royal flop having lost investors around -90% of t