EU, US renewables growth outstrips conventional sources

www.environmental-finance.com
London, 14 May

More renewable energy than conventional power capacity was added in both the EU and the US for the first time in 2008, according to the annual report from stakeholder group REN21. Globally, power capacity of renewable energy sources rose 16% in 2008 to 280 GW, the report says, with the EU and US reaching 96 GW and 40 GW respectively. Investment in renewables capacity and biofuels refineries reached a record $120 billion, higher than the previous year's figure of $104 billion - though REN21 noted that its analysis methods had changed this year, so the figures were not directly comparable.

Wind energy took a 42% share of the investment, which led capacity to climb 29% to 121 GW. The report says China alone doubled its wind energy capacity - for the fourth year in a row - ending 2008 with 12 GW installed. But the US led the sector, with 8.36 GW added in 2008, bringing it up to 25.1 GW in total. Grid-connected solar photovoltaic systems were the fastest growing power generation technology, with a 70% increase in existing capacity to reach 13 GW, the report says. The majority of this capacity is located in Germany (5.4 GW), Spain (3.3 GW) and Japan (2.0 GW).

"The recent growth of the sector has surpassed all predictions, even those made by the industry itself," said Mohamed El-Ashry, chairman of REN21. He noted that favourable policies had driven much of this growth - today, at least 73 countries have renewable energy targets, up from 66 at the end of 2007. He urged governments to maintain and expand these policies to help fend off the effect of the financial crisis, which slowed renewables growth towards the end of 2008, and will impact in 2009.

"Now is not the time to relax policies.., society will reap substantial economic and environmental rewards when the economic rebound requires energy markets to meet rapidly increasing demand," he said. REN21's headline figure excludes large-scale hydro power projects. If these are included, the global total of installed renewables capacity is 1,140 GW.