HONG KONG — Every day, national and local officials, municipal utilities, corporations, homeowners and consumers are weighing the risks and rewards of adopting renewable energy. The up-front costs can be daunting.

Sure, putting solar panels on my house might be good for Mother Earth and could save me money in the long term, but what if they break in two years and I’m out $5,000 before I have recouped my investment?

Unfortunately, good karma points are not going to pay the power bill. But insurance might.

Increasingly, insurers are stepping in to bridge the gap between green intentions and actual capital outlays on green technology.

They are backstopping warranties on solar panels, helping start-up companies with short track records offer multidecade guarantees on their products and win over skeptical customers and project financiers. They are studying weather patterns to offer protection in the event of, say, unusually weak winds that fail to spin turbines, or a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that diminishes the output of a solar energy facility in Spain.