Clean Energy Gets 1 Trillionth Investment Dollar

December 7th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported yesterday that over 1 trillion dollars have now been invested in renewable energy, smart grid technology, and energy efficiency since 2004, when records on this began. (So, yeah, over one trillion dollars were invested long before yesterday, but you know how these things go….)

Interestingly, the one trillionth dollar was recorded in the midst of the (not-so-uplifting) climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa. For global warming deniers and other conspiracy theory addicts, that is probably just more indication that this is one humongous government-business-investor-environmentalist conspiracy. For the rest of us, well, it’s something old-timers call “coincidence.”

Bloomberg New Energy Finance notes that the trillionth dollar was probably invested somewhere in the developing world (if you are a fan of such minutia), and lists these as some of the of the projects which might have received that unique (but not so unique) dollar:

Rhodia Energy secured the Brazilian real equivalent of $60.5m in debt for the 77MW expansion of its biomass co-generation plant in Paraiso; China Huadian Corporation financed a 48MW wind farm in Fujian province; Marena Renovables Capital obtained debt from the Inter-American Development Bank towards the development of the 396MW La Ventosa wind farm in Mexico; and the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy got debt financing for the development of phase one of the 125MW Ouarzazate solar thermal project. In venture capital and private equity, electric vehicle specialist Fisker Automotive of the US landed $58m in the first tranche of a funding round. On public markets, biodiesel maker Petrotec of Germany raised the euro equivalent of $11m in cash and kind, via a rights issue.

More important than where the trillionth dollar was spent is the clean energy trend over the past decade or so.

“Annual clean energy investment has risen nearly five-fold, from $52bn in 2004 to $243bn last year, a compound annual growth rate of 29%,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance notes.

“Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects figures for 2011 once again to be in record territory, driven by fundings for US solar thermal projects, some large European offshore wind financings, continued high levels of activity in China and Germany, and the flowering of national renewable energy programmes in India.”

I’m sure it won’t take nearly as long to invest another trillion as it took to invest the first trillion.

Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance/energyNOW! (on Facebook, via Twitter) | Solar panel & money image via shutterstock









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