Page 5 - AfrElec Week 03 2021

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec

in the coming years.”
Low-carbon investment by oil and gas com- Renewables capacity investment rose 10% in
panies amounted to $12.7bn in 2020, while there Japan to $19.3bn, 177% in the UK to $16.2bn
was a 10-fold growth of clean energy exchange- and 221% in the Netherlands to $14.3bn.
traded funds in just one year. Spain was up 16% at $10bn, Brazil up 23%
at $8.7bn, Vietnam 89% higher at $7.4bn,
Green generation France 38% up at $7.3bn and Germany 14%
Global investment in renewable energy capacity, up at $7.1bn. Other markets seeing $3bn-plus
which involves the generation of electricity using totals included Taiwan, Australia, South Korea,
wind, solar, geothermal and other green technol- Poland, Chile, Turkey and Sweden.
ogies, moved up 2% to $303.5bn in 2020.
This was the second-highest annual figure Funding efforts
ever (after 2017’s $313.3bn), and the seventh Financing also reached record levels in 2020.
consecutive total of more than $250bn. Investment from stock markets, venture capital
However, falling capital costs meant that the and private equity players raised $20bn via share
volumes of both solar (132 GW) and wind (73 issues on public markets, up 249% on the pre-
GW) installed reached their highest ever levels. vious year.
Digging further down into investment lev- The biggest deals included $2.8bn raised by
els, offshore wind projects saw a 56% growth in Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex
financing levels to $50bn. The largest ever off- Technology (CATL), $846mn from US fuel cell
shore wind deal came in at $8.3bn for the 2.5- company Plug Power, and $777mn from Chi-
GW Dogger Bank project in the UK North Sea. nese PV manufacturer JA Solar Technology.
2020 also saw the largest single solar park Venture capital and private equity invest-
ever funded, the 2-GW Al Dhafrah facility in ment in renewables and storage increased 51%
the United Arab Emirates, at a cost of $1.1bn. to $5.9bn last year.
Overall, solar capacity investment was up Both this, and investment via the public mar-
12% at $148.6bn, and wind (onshore and off- kets, took place against the backdrop of buoyant
shore) down 6% at $142.7bn. Biomass and share prices: the WilderHill New Energy Global
waste-to-energy financings were down 3% at Innovation Index, or NEX, which tracks about
$10bn. 100 clean energy stocks worldwide, rose 142%
In terms of regions, renewable energy in 2020 to record levels.
capacity investment in Europe, at $81.8bn and This positive investor mood helped EV com-
up 52%, was its highest since 2012 and almost panies raise some $28bn from stock market
caught up with China, at $83.6bn, down 12%. investors in 2020, up from just $1.6bn in 2019,
The US fell 20% to $49.3bn, as wind invest- according to BNEF estimates. Last year’s total
ment almost halved, and India slipped 36% to was seven times the previous record, achieved
$6.2bn. in 2016™

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