What Global New Energy Investment Trends Show

Global renewable energy investment is slowing down. Should we worry? Does this point to the continued fall in cost of renewable energy production? Or a slowdown in the global energy transition?

Yongping Zhai and Yoonah Lee, 14 August 2019 (Eco-Business)

“Investment in renewable energy around the world is entering a new phase…[G]lobal investment in renewable energy peaked in 2017 at $326.3 billion, and in 2018 fell by 11.5 per cent to $288.9 billion…[and it] dropped 14 per cent in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018…[The slower growth is mainly due] to falling costs in solar and wind globally, and to the change in market conditions with reduced subsidies in many countries…The global weighted average of installed cost for solar PV was $4621/kW in 2010 and in 2018 was $1210/kW—a reduction of 73.8 per cent…The installed cost for onshore wind power declined nearly 22 per cent from $1913/kW in 2010 to $1497/kW…In other words, the needed investment is lower for installing the same level of solar or wind power capacity…[Both 2017 and 2018 had 171 GW of new] installed capacity…

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By 2030, solar PV will be the cheapest electricity source with its levelised cost at around $0.046/kWh, followed by onshore wind at $0.050/kWh, both will be much lower than coal power at $0.096/kWh…So, the fall in renewable energy investment isn’t a cause for concern…[But] 2018 was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity addition failed to increase year-on-year…[To beat the climate crisis,] we need to do more…we need to develop other renewable power generation technologies…we need to invest more in transmission and distribution systems with smart grid technologies and energy storage systems…we need to develop other forms of clean energy applications…[and] we need to tackle the potential of demand-side energy efficiency…” click here for more

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