WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Following two years of declines and despite sharply lower crude oil prices, green energy investments worldwide rebounded last year, thanks to major expansions of solar installations in China and Japan and record investments in offshore wind projects, a UN-backed report revealed Tuesday.
UNEP's 9th annual 'Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment' report, prepared by Frankfurt School - UNEP Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, showed that global investments in renewable energy rose 17% to $270 Billion in 2014, with the sector adding 103GW of capacity.
Wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-power, geothermal, small hydro and marine power contributed to an estimated 9.1% of world electricity generation last year, an increase of 8.5% from the previous year, according to the report.
'Once again in 2014, renewables made up nearly half of the net power capacity added worldwide' says Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNEP. 'These climate-friendly energy technologies are now an indispensable component of the global energy mix and their importance will only 2 increase as markets mature, technology prices continue to fall and the need to rein in carbon emissions becomes ever more urgent.'
In 2014, investment in solar jumped 25% to $149.6 billion, while wind investment rose 11% to a record $99.5 billion, the report said.
China was the world's biggest renewable energy investor last year with a record $83.3 billion of investments, followed by the US with $38.3 billion and Japan with $35.7 billion.
The report said 2014 was a turnaround year for renewables, but multiple challenges remain in the form of policy uncertainty and structural issues in the electricity system.
'Europe was the first mover in clean energy, but it is still in a process of restructuring those early support mechanisms,' notes Michael Liebreich, Chairman of the Advisory Board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 'In the UK and Germany we are seeing a move away from feed-in tariffs and green certificates, towards reverse auctions and subsidy caps, aimed at capping the cost of the transition to consumers.'
Udo Steffens, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, said the recent collapse in oil price is only likely to dampen investor confidence in parts of the sector, such as solar in oilexporting countries, and biofuels in most parts of the world. 'Oil and renewables do not directly compete for power investment dollars,' said Steffens. 'Wind and solar sectors should be able to carry on flourishing, particularly if they continue to cut costs per MWh. Their long-term story is just more convincing.'
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