The rise of the global clean energy industry is now irreversible according to analysts, as new figures released today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reveal clean energy investment rose four per cent in 2015 to reach a record high of $329bn.
The latest figures confirm the global clean energy sector continued to defy predictions that historically low fossil fuel prices across the oil, coal and gas markets would undermine investment in renewables, electric vehicles, and other clean technologies.
BNEF said over the past 12 months clean energy investment rose from $315.9bn to $329bn, beating the previous high set in 2011 by three per cent. The market was driven by surging investment in China, the US, Latin America and India, the report said.
2015 was also the highest-ever year for the installation of renewable capacity, with 64GW of wind capacity and 57GW of solar commissioned, BNEF said, up 30 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The buoyant performance of renewables comes in spite of slumping fossil fuel prices, which some analysts predicted would dampen enthusiasm for clean energy investment. Over the past 18 months the price of Brent crude has dropped 67 per cent to below $40 per barrel, while the price of natural gas in the US fell 48 per cent and the price of international steam coal dropped 35 per cent in Europe.
Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for BNEF, said the figures highlight the growing cost-competitiveness of many renewable energy technologies. "These figures are a stunning riposte to all those who expected clean energy investment to stall on falling oil and gas prices," he said in a statement.
"They highlight the improving cost-competitiveness of solar and wind power, driven in part by the move by many countries to reverse-auction new capacity rather than providing advantageous tariffs, a shift that has put producers under continuing price pressure."
Liebreich added that in the wake of the Paris Agreement reach last month further increases in clean energy investment now appear irreversible. "Wind and solar power are now being adopted in many developing countries as a natural and substantial part of the generation mix," he said. "And it is very hard to see these trends going backwards, in the light of December's Paris Climate Agreement."
Some of the largest clean energy projects financed last year were large offshore wind developments, including the UK's 580MW Race Bank scheme in the North Sea, at an estimated cost of $2.9bn, and Germany's 402MW Veja Mate at $2.1bn.
The new data follows a similar analysis from GlobalData, which this week said soaring investment in China's renewable energy market took global renewables capacity to a record 913.5GW last year. Meanwhile, the Economist Intelligence Unit this week also predicted that the trend towards wider adoption of increasingly cost-competitive renewables would continue throughout 2016, despite the falling price of fossil fuels.
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