According to the Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative (SEFI) sustainable energy investment went up by 60% in 2007 compared to 2006. About $148.4 billion of new money was raised in 2007. Also, renewable energy accounted for 31 gigawatts (23%) of global new power generation capacity added in 2007, and 5.4% of installed generation capacity. This was despite a global slowdown due to the credit crunch.
The wind sector is the primary technology being invested in world wide, having raked in a total of $51b worth of investments.
Next came Solar with $28b, Biofuels $19b, Biomass & Waste $10b, Other Renew $3b, Efficiency $2.8b and Other Low carbon projects got $2.4b.
Also in 2007, about $16.9b was spent by both the government and the private sector for R&D on Clean Energy and Efficiency technologies. Europe and the Middle East were the areas where most corporate R&D was done on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
This is definitely great news. Despite world players being non committal in their stance for seriously lowing their countries carbon emissions, it’s nice to see actual figures showing that there is a spark of hope in the drive to ween the world off of fossil fuels. Of course with the oil crisis of 2008 I wouldn’t be surprised if these figures jumped even further for 2008.
The rapid adaption of wind technology also bolsters EDC’s claim that they are having a hard time sourcing wind turbines for their wind farms due to shortages.
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Category: Clean Energy, Trends, Investing
