NEW YORK -- Investors' appetites for new alternative energy companies remain robust but tastes have shifted: while ethanol makers seem to have exhausted their favor, Chinese solar cell makers continue to pull in fresh capital.

According to IPOHome.com, 115 companies went public in the United States during the first half of the year. Of those, eight were in the alternative energy sector, compared with nine offerings for all of 2006.

"What we're seeing is a very strong pipeline" of renewable energy IPOs, both in the United States and overseas, said Michael Liebreich, chairman and chief executive of research provider New Energy Finance.

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