Angela McClowry
Photo by Andreas Gücklhorn on Unsplash
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with Bloomberg New Energy Finance released their annual Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2018. The report focuses on investment in renewable power and fuels - wind, solar, biomass and waste, biofuels, geothermal and marine projects, and small hydro-electric dams.
Some of the key findings from the report:
- The rise of solar power has dominated renewable energy investment in 2017, with 98 gigawatts of new solar power projects installed, which is more than that new coal, gas and nuclear plants put together.
- Developing economies have maintained their dominance since 2015 with their spend of renewable energy investment accounting for 63% (up from 54% in 2016) .
- China, India and Brazil are by far the leaders of the developing world in their spend on renewables, with China spending $126 billion compared to the US spend of $40 billion.
- Within Africa the standout market was Egypt, recording growth of 495% with a spend of 2.6 billion.
Of interest in the report is an analysis of the electric vehicle market and the uptake per country in 2017. The number of EVs has grown from 122,000 vehicles in 2012 to around 1.1 million in 2017. Whist still a very small percentage of overall vehicle growth (representing 1.8%) it does show that with a reduction in lithium ion battery cost, subsidies for car owners and the rising price of fuel we may see this trend keep up this pace.
Examples from Cleanleap
At Cleanleap we are excited to be witnessing this growth in investment of renewable energy in developing economies, some examples from Kenya and Rwanda:
- Kenya To Build East & Central Africa’s Largest Solar-Power Plant In Garissa
- Saving trees by using efficient biomass pellets for cooking in Rwanda
- Pico-hydro a new source of energy in Rwanda