New figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predict that by 2030, global spending on renewable energy installations will have hit $7 trillion.
Bloomberg’s “Global Renewable Energy Market Outlook” report, the analysis company’s latest forecasts on the size of the world renewable energy markets out to 2030, shows a steady rise in the value of installed renewable capacity.
BNEF predicts doubling from 2010’s record-breaking $195 billion, to $395 billion in 2020, before reaching $460 billion in 2030.
By 2030, the report states, 15.7 percent of the world’s energy (including hydropower) will come from renewable sources.
Europe will remain the biggest market for renewable energy investment, but faces a short-term slowdown in growth due to cutbacks in feed-in tariffs for solarand wind power projects, before ramping up again after 2015 in order to help reach the EU’s 2020 Renewable Energy Target (RET).
The flourishing economies of the Middle East, Africa, India and Latin America are set to see growth rates of installed renewable capacity of 10-18 percent a year over the period 2010 to 2020.
While most asset finance for new renewable projects currently comes out of the EU, post-2014 China will begin to dominate the investment market, with an annual spend of $50 billion.
Solar power will experience the second-highest percentage growth after offshore wind of all renewable energy technologies, rising from 51 GW in 2010 to 1,137 GW by 2030.
Increased demand for clean energy in countries like Turkey, Australia and on the African continent will spur deployment in the wind sector, both on and offshore, while both the Canadian and the USA wind industry will continue to grow steadily, hitting $50 billion in investments by 2020.
According to Guy Turner, director of commodity market research, BNEF:
“These results indicate that last year’s record renewable energy investment was no one-off despite the recent economic gloom. Big winners over the next 20 years will be the emerging renewable energy hubs in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa - by 2020 the markets outside of the EU, US, Canada and China will account for 50% of global annual investment in renewable energy capacity.”
