Investment in renewables overtakes fossil fuels as $155bn put into clean energy in 2008, according to UN report

4 June 2009

In 2008, $155bn was invested in clean energy companies and projects worldwide, not including large hydro, according to a new report from the UN.

Of this, $13.5bn of new private investment went into companies developing and scaling-up new technologies alongside $117bn of investment in renewable energy projects from geothermal and wind to solar and biofuels.
Extremely difficult financial market conditions prevailed during 2008 as a result of the global economic crisis, the report said. Nevertheless, investment in clean energy topped 2007’s record investments by 5 per cent in large part as a result of China, Brazil and other emerging economies.

Of the $155bn, $105bn was spent directly developing 40GW of power generating capacity from wind, solar, small-hydro, biomass and geothermal sources. A further $35bn was spent on developing 25GW of large hydropower, according to the report.

This $140bn investment in 65GW of low carbon electricity generation compares with the estimated $250bn spent globally in 2008 constructing 157GW of new power generating capacity from all sources.

It means that renewables currently account for the majority of investment and over 40 per cent of actual power generation capacity additions last year.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said, ‘Without doubt the economic crisis has taken its toll on investments in clean energy when set against the record-breaking growth of recent years. Investment in the United States fell by two per cent and in Europe growth was very much muted. However, there were also some bright points in 2008 especially in developing economies-China became the world’s second largest wind market in terms of new capacity and the world’s biggest photovoltaic manufacturer and a rise in geothermal energy may be getting underway in countries from Australia to Japan and Kenya.’

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Tags: biofuel, energy generation, geothermal, hydro, infrastructure, photovoltaic, solar, wind

This story was published on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, biomass/biofuel, companies, deals, energy efficiency, geothermal, knowledge, solar, water, wind. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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