First Solar thinks different, and that’s why its stock is in a class by itself in the renewable-energy field. Though it’s a young company in an emerging industry, it has become a profit machine, a status burnished by its first-quarter results.

Today it reported earnings of 57 cents a share, outdoing consensus estimates by a dime. Revenue of $196.9 million was triple the year-earlier sum. Taking the new numbers into account, analyst John Hardy of American Technology Research believes First Solar is likely to earn $2.82 a share this year.

With the stock around $300 -- it closed at $291.99 but spiked to $307.80 in early trading -- that still implies a rich price-to-earnings ratio. But the equation loses its outlandish tinge when you consider that First Solar is building plants fast to satisfy demand that may swell next year’s profit up to $7 a share.

First Solar is living large on "thin film," a next-generation method that accounts for perhaps 10% of the industry’s installations. Silicon-based cells claim the rest. Thin-film products are flexible, lighter and above all, dodge the inflated price of silicon, which has been on a tear. But the standard material converts sunlight into energy more efficiently, and the intricacies of thin-film chemistry and manufacturing have been known to hamper companies trying to get off the ground.

Even within the thin-film brigade, however, First Solar goes it alone. Its formula relies on tellurium, one of the rarest elements on the planet. Long-term supply is secure, the firm says, and all else seems to be going right too. Its much-admired manufacturing is said to be so cost-effective that some see it leading the charge to bring solar into coal’s price range. That’s a goal dear to the hearts of both environmentalists and investors.