Global Renewable Energy Investment Trends, 2014 – Fiinovation

By Author: Rahul Choudhury
Total Articles: 22
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The report was released by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The other main cause was policy uncertainty in many countries, an issue that also reduced investment in fossil fuel generation in 2013. Last year’s investment was $214 billion which was the lowest since 2009. Investments dropped by 14% from $249.5 billion in 2012 to $214 in 2013.

As per Fiinovation, the key highlights from the report to be noted include:

Descended cost of the total investment by 14%
Improved cost-effectiveness of solar photovoltaic systems
Reduced solar PV outlays by 20%
Increased investment in renewable energy from China and Japan

Fiinovation is in favour of this being a good trend that is intended to improve over the years. Since non-renewable energy resources are being continuously depleted, the demand for investment in renewable energy is increasing. An interesting trajectory has been the significant investment by China in renewable energy which has been ...
... more than the contribution from Europe. However efforts need to be directed towards enhancing investments from developing nations and under developed nations.

Despite the decline in total investment due to specific reasons, it was not at all disappointing for the industry or people who wish to see the investors and financiers increasing their investments to decarbonisation of the energy system. The report highlighted the role of Japan which has increased investment to $29 billion which excludes research and development. It is believed that there is a need to recycle finance in this sector and mergers and acquisitions can be one method to do so.

Fiinovation is aware of the fact that policy support was not futuristic for renewables in countries such as US, Germany, India, the UK, France, Sweden, Romania and Poland which delayed the investment decisions. While in countries like Spain and Bulgaria, retroactive subsidy cuts for existing projects almost killed off investment entirely. Investment’s by India in renewable energy dropped by 15% from $7.2 billion in 2012 to $6.1 billion in 2013 due to policy paralysis. It is expected that the challenges will be tackled and investments in renewable energy will increase significantly in the years to come.

Rahul Choudhury

Resource: Fiinovation is associated with Health organizations for their CSR activities across India. Fiinovation was also the principal sponsor of the event 'Better Healthcare through CSR'.

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