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For the First Time In 3 Years, Investments In Renewable Energy Increased

Posted by Soulskill on from the renewed-interest-in-renewables dept.

Lucas123 writes: Driven largely by oil price weakness, 2015 could be the best year to date for investments in renewable energy technology, according to several new reports. According to Bloomberg Energy Finance, new funding for wind, solar, biofuels and other low-carbon energy technologies grew 16% to $310 billion last year. It was the first growth since 2011 (PDF), erasing the impact of lower solar-panel prices and falling subsides in the U.S. and Europe that hurt the industry in previous years. Demand for solar power grew 16% year-over-year in 2014, representing 44 gigawatts of capacity purchased during the year. Worldwide solar demand in 2015 is projected to be 51.4GW, compared with 39GW in 2014. Government policies will continue to improve for renewables — solar, in particular — given that anti-dumping duties imposed on Chinese modules by the U.S. last year are expected to be removed this year, Deutsche Bank said.

2 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Huh? by DamonHD · · Score: 4, Informative

    “Healthy investment in clean energy may surprise some commentators, who have been predicting trouble for renewables as a result of the oil price collapse,” said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board of the London-based researcher. “Our answer is that 2014 was too early to see any noticeable effect on investment. The impact of cheaper crude will be felt much more in road transport than in electricity generation.”

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

    Rgds

    Damon

    --
    http://m.earth.org.uk/
  2. Re:Huh? by burni2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    perhaps some managers took engineering classes and started to re-project peak oil and realized:

    That peak oil will still be there, just a bit later. And that when you have cheap oil at hand and you make yourself highly depended on such a resource, where we have seen everything from extreme low to painfully high within a very short time.

    That not looking on efficiency and substitution you wouldn't be prepared for the future, when such choices would be made by many companies+people that would increase the demand on renewables to a stretch where markets simply cannot deliver any more. When markets cannot deliver anymore prices go skyrocketing making that late choice for renewables really painfull.

    (we saw this in 2007/2008 when market demand for renewables was so high, that the demand could not be satisfied any more)