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Global green spending rises 1% in 2019
GLOBAL
GLOBAL investment in renewable generation rose 1% in 2019 to $282bn, with the Chinese market falling and US spending reaching record levels.
Figures from BloombergNEF (BNEF) found that investment in offshore wind capacity showed the most noticeable growth, especially in the US, China and Europe, with global spend- ing surging late in the year to $29.9bn, up 19% on 2018.
“Offshore wind developers in China brought forward 15 projects to beat a scheduled expiry of that country’s feed-in tariff (FiT),” said Tom Harries, head of wind research at BNEF.
“We expect the sector’s global momentum to continue in 2020, with the focus on giga- watt-scale projects in the British North Sea and the first commercial arrays off the US East Coast,” he added.
These areas also dominated in 2019, with the $3.4bn, 432-MW Neart na Gaoithe array in the North Sea, the $2bn, 376-MW Formosa II Miaoli project off Taiwan and the $1.5bn, 500- MW Fuzhou Changle C installation in the East China Sea all reaching financial closure.
Yet offshore wind pales in significance com- pared to market-leading solar with $131.1bn, a 3% drop, while onshore wind, coming in at $108.3bn (up 6%), was second. Combining onshore and offshore makes wind the market leader with $138.2bn globally, (up 6%).
Falling costs for solar and wind meant that capacity approvals actually rose by 12.5%, or 20 GW, to 180 GW, while accompanying invest- ment increased by only 1%.
China led the way in investment with $83.4bn, although this was an 8% decline from 2018 and the lowest since 2013.While wind rose by 10% to $55bn, solar fell by 33% to $25.7bn, less than 33% of the 2017 level.
Stunning growth of 28% in the US to $55.5bn was boosted by wind and solar developers’ hurry to qualify for federal tax credits that are due to be reduced in 2020.
“It’s notable that in this third year of the Trump presidency, which has not been particu- larly supportive of renewables, US clean energy investment set a new record by a country mile,” said Ethan Zindler, head of Americas for BNEF.
“These technologies are more cost-compet- itive than ever, and the fact that there was a tax credit step-down on the horizon made the mar- ket particularly busy in 2019.”
Europe fell behind the US, investing $54.3bn, down 7%, with Spanish investment climbing by 25% to $8.4bn and UK spending slumping by 40% to $5.3bn.
In Asia, commitments fell as previously gen- erous tariffs and subsidies were cut. Japanese spending slid 10% to $16.5bn, while Australia’s crashed to $5.6bn, down 40%, and India’s fell 14% to $9.3bn.™
Week 03 23•January•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P7