I started out writing today’s piece on anything BUT energy and infrastructure. After all, the street has trashed most of the stocks in both these sectors and left them for dead.

Soaring oil prices have led to such a boom for solar power that the industry could operate without subsidies in just a few years.

According to The Guardian newspaper, there’s growing confidence that so-called “grid parity”, the holy grail of the industry — whereby solar power can be produced as cheaply as it bought from the grid — is close at hand.

“The [US]  government recently incentivized production of ethanol, biofuel, and solar technology,” says Charles Delvalle in Investor’s Daily Edge.

The British government gave a huge boost to wind energy stocks this week, opening bidding for offers to build up to 25 gigawatts of offshore wind turbines by 2020 — triple the amount previously planned.

The European Union has set a target date of 2020 for 20% of its energy to come from renewable sources. The British Wind Energy Association said Britain will contribute 15%, meaning up to 40% of the country’s power will come from wind energy by the target date.

“The richest investment opportunities can be found in the fast-emerging alternative energy sector,” says Mike Burnick in The Offshore A-Letter.

Has there been a better time to consider alternative energy investments? Today, crude oil prices jumped $6 to reach $134 after the Israeli transport minister said an attack on Iranian nuclear sites looked “unavoidable.”

Thomson Reuters reports that, according to the National Venture Capital Association, the alternative energy investments sector boasts the highest growth in venture capital investments in the last five years.

Big bucks are also flowing in from US pension funds into an array of alternative energy investments, stoking concerns of a possible bubble.