China helps boost global clean energy investment

Global Clean Energy Investment

Amid the worst recession in over half a century last years global overall investment in clean energy fell only 6.5 percent below 2008 figures, thanks in a large part to China's significant investments in wind energy according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

In 2008, new investments peaked at US$155 billion as the world embraced renewable and sustainable energy and began to realise the immense economic potential for green investments. Then we entered the worst of the global financial crisis and even though green tech was used as a way of stimulating the economy through the creation of new jobs, investments inevitably fell. In 2009 the world spent US$145 billion on renewable energy technology.

Much of Asia fared far better than many of its counterparts during the recession and this showed as it was a key reason for the buoyancy of investments, with the money spent there pushing the continent beyond the total of the Americas last year. for the first time, total new financial investment in clean energy in Asia-Oceania reached US$37.3 billion, ahead of the Americas at US$32 billion, as reported by Renewable Energy Focus.

EMEA region leading the world

The US$37.3 billion spent in Asia was a 25 percent increase on the previous year and was driven by China's emerging passion for wind power.

Europe, Middle East and Africa continued to lead the world with US$42.2 billion of clean energy investment, but this represented a 14 percent slump in the EMEA region for 2009.

The financial slowdown significantly damaged clean energy investments in Europe and the America's, not surprising considering these were the first and worst hit by the crisis. As commercial banks started running scared, credit for renewable energy projects was quickly cut making life extremely difficult for public sector institutions, such as the European Investment Bank.

"The 2009 global investment numbers are higher than we expected even just a few weeks ago," explains Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

"Clean energy remains a sector with strong long-term growth fundamentals even during hard economic times, and Asia has arrived not just as a big consumer of energy, but also as a heavyweight investor in clean energy capacity," he added.

Where did the money go?

The renewable energy sectors that received asset financing last year included, 83 deals in wind energy (US$13.9 billion); 29 deals in biomass (US$3.3 billion); 35 deals in solar (US$1.6 billion); 11 deals in small hydro (US$1.1 billion); three deals in geothermal received US$0.5 billion and three deals in marine energy received (US$0.1 billion).

In 2008 green energy overtook fossil fuels in attracting investment for power generation for the first time, according to figures released by the UN. This was the biggest sign yet that focus is truly shifting away from traditional energy sources and falling on cleaner power generation. And when developing countries like China and India start leading the way in such investments, its hard to see this pattern changing from here on in.

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