Claresholm Solar Farm, Alberta. (Capstone Infrastructure)
England — Global investment in renewable energy totaled $226 billion in the primary half of 2022, setting a recent record for the primary six months of a 12 months.
The uptick in investment reflects an acceleration in demand for clean energy supplies to tackle the continuing global energy and climate crises, in line with Renewable Energy Investment Tracker 2H 2022, a recent report published by research firm BloombergNEF (BNEF).
Investment in recent large- and small-scale solar projects rose to a record-breaking $120 billion, up 33% from the primary half of 2021. Wind project financing was up 16% from 1H 2021, at $84 billion. Each sectors have been challenged recently by rising input costs for key materials corresponding to steel and polysilicon, in addition to supply chain disruptions and rising financing costs. Yet, today’s figures indicate that investor appetite is stronger than ever, partly as a result of the very high energy prices currently being seen in lots of markets worldwide.
The Renewable Energy Investment Tracker summarizes BloombergNEF’s tracking of worldwide investment in renewable energy as much as and including 1H 2022, and covers each project investments and company fundraising. In addition to seeing booming project investments, the primary half also saw an all-time record for enterprise capital and personal equity investments into renewables and energy storage, with $9.6 billion raised – up 63% on the previous 12 months.
One category that saw falling investment was public equity issuances. After a really strong first half in 2021, public market issuances for renewable energy corporations dropped 65% in 1H 2022, totaling $10.5 billion. The 2Q figure, at $3.9 billion raised, is the bottom quarterly total since 2Q 2020.
Albert Cheung, head of study at BloombergNEF, said: “Policy makers are increasingly recognizing that renewable energy is the important thing to unlocking energy security goals and reducing dependence on volatile energy commodities. Despite the headwinds presented by ongoing cost inflation and provide chain challenges, demand for clean energy sources has never been higher, and we expect that the worldwide energy crisis will proceed to act as an accelerant for the clean energy transition.”
China posted remarkable investment growth in each wind and solar project finance. The country’s large-scale solar investments totaled $41 billion in 1H 2022, up 173% from the 12 months before. It also invested $58 billion in recent wind projects, up 107% year-on-year. Nannan Kou, BNEF’s head of China evaluation, said: “Green infrastructure is an important investment area that China is counting on to spice up its weak economy within the second half of 2022. The investment growth trend follows China’s technique to construct recent renewable generation capability in order that it could actually replace its existing coal fleet. China is well heading in the right direction to hit its 1,200 gigawatt wind and solar capability goal by 2030.”
Offshore wind was one other sector that saw a stark increase, with investment up 52% from the previous 12 months, to $32 billion. Chelsea Jean-Michel, offshore wind analyst at BNEF said: “Investments in 2022 will flow into projects coming online in the following few years because the offshore wind installed base is about to grow tenfold from 53GW in 2021 to 504GW in 2035. Offshore wind projects enable corporations and governments to make progress towards their decarbonization goals at scale. The UK, France and Germany are only a number of of the countries which have increased their offshore wind targets in the primary half of 2022, signaling further support for investment within the technology.”
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SOURCE: BloombergNEF news release
