Global investments in renewable energy surged 31 percent in the first quarter from the same period last year, driven by wind power and demand in China, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.
New spending on wind, solar and geothermal power through share offerings, venture capital and asset finance totaled $27.3 billion in the three months through March compared with $20.8 billion in the first quarter of 2009, New Energy Finance said today in an e-mailed statement.
“We stick to our forecast that 2010 will see record overall new investment in clean energy,” New Energy Finance Chief Executive Michael Liebreich said in the statement. “We expect the year’s total to end up between $175 billion and $200 billion compared to last year’s $162 billion.”
Investments in China were the largest of any country at $6.5 billion, 24 percent more than the first quarter of 2009. Wind farms accounted for $14.1 billion of the total, 43 percent higher than in the same period a year earlier. The Global Wind Energy Council said today that wind power capacity will likely grow at an annual average rate of 21 percent through 2014.
“Even in the face of a global recession and financial crisis, wind energy continues to be the technology of choice in many countries around the world,” Steve Sawyer, secretary- general of Brussels-based GWEC, said in an e-mailed statement.
China’s ‘Breathtaking Pace’
Global installed wind capacity is forecast to reach 409 gigawatts by 2014 compared with 158.5 gigawatts at the end of 2009, according to the wind energy council, an industry association. China and the U.S. will lead the expansion, with growth in the Asian nation occurring “at a breathtaking pace,” GWEC said.
Total investment in renewable energy was lower in the first quarter than the $31.6 billion spent in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to New Energy Finance. The total was weighed down by Europe, where spending fell to $4 billion from $7.6 billion a year earlier and $6 billion in the fourth quarter. In the U.S., asset finance rose to $3.5 billion in the first quarter from $2.4 billion in the last three months of 2009.
Deals boosting the total include a $202 million stock issue by Clipper Windpower Plc, $350 million of private funding raised by the U.S. electric vehicle infrastructure developer Better Place LLC and Bunge Ltd.’s $896 million acquisition of Brazilian sugar cane mills Usina Moema Participacoes SA.
