By Renewable Energy Focus staff
According to a new report - Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? 2010 Edition - released by The Pew Charitable Trusts and data provider Bloomberg New Energy Finance, China continued to solidify its position as the world’s clean energy powerhouse. Its record US$54.4 billion was up 39% from 2009.
The U.S. however, which had maintained the top spot until 2008, fell another rung in 2010 to third with US$34 billion, despite having the highest VC (early stage) funding of any nation.
According to Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, this highlights the different approach taken by the U.S., which hopes to invest in VC and technology development, and capitalize later as new and potential breakthrough technologies come on stream. This is in contrast to Europe, where investment has been used to stimulate demand (i.e. Feed-in Tariffs/Round 3 in the UK); and Asia which aims to capture the supply chain (PV Modules/Wind turbines).
However, this is a risky strategy, and Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program warned that the lack of political support could end up stopping the development of clean energy manufacturing and jobs, and effectively push talent out of the country.
“The clean energy sector is emerging as one of the most dynamic and competitive in the world, witnessing 630 percent growth in finance and investments since 2004,” said Cuttino: “Countries like China, Germany and India were attractive to financers because they have national policies that support renewable energy standards, carbon reduction targets and/or incentives for investment and production and that create long-term certainty for investors.”
Wind power continued to be the favoured technology for investors at US$95 billion. However, the solar sector experienced significant growth in 2010, with investments growing 53% to a record US$79 billion, with more than 17 GW of new generating capacity globally. Germany accounted for 45% of global solar investments.
“Looking at global trends, the solar sector experienced the strongest growth among the various technologies, led by small-scale residential projects,” said Liebreich: “Declining prices and important government support helped the solar sector achieve 40 percent of total clean energy investment in 2010.”