The slump in oil prices that’s brought upheaval and cost-cutting to the traditional energy industry spared renewables such as solar and wind, which raked in a record $329.3 billion of investment last year.
The 4 percent increase in clean energy technology spending from 2014 reflected tumbling prices for photovoltaics and wind turbines as well as a few big financings for offshore wind farms on the drawing board for years, according to research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance released on Thursday.
“These figures are a stunning riposte to all those who expected clean energy investment to stall on falling oil and gas prices,” said Michael Liebreich, founder of the London-based research arm of Bloomberg LP. “They highlight the improving cost-competitiveness of solar and wind power.”
While oil companies eliminate jobs and curb capital spending to cope with prices that have fallen two-thirds in 18 months, renewables are enjoying a renaissance underpinned by rules designed to curb fossil-fuel emissions damaging the atmosphere.
Fears that low oil prices will continue into 2016 have knocked confidence among oil companies, delaying $380 billion worth of investment in upstream projects, according to analysis by industry consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. on Jan. 12. Companies are “going into survival mode” this year with more projects delayed and budgets cut, said Angus Rodger, one of the report’s authors.
Brent crude oil has traded near $30 a barrel this month, down from more than $110 in 2014 as exporters led by Saudi Arabia battled for market share. Coal and natural gas prices have followed, already pushing a handful of producers into bankruptcy. While BNEF has said lower prices may hurt funding for efficiency projects and the spread of electric cars, the main clean energy technologies enjoyed record installations in 2015.
February 17, 2016 at 11:50 am
“The 4 percent increase in clean energy technology spending from 2014… ”
If spending is an indice roughly the same thing as deploying, then 2015 was a very bad year for renewable energy, which needs to increase about 30 – 50% every year to meet our goals for 2050.
Not sure we should be cheer-leading failure.
February 17, 2016 at 12:15 pm
Seems like all this excitement could be tempered a bit with news of Nevada and other states (under heavy Utilities lobbying) removing all incentives and tax breaks for renewables… basically shutting down the deployment of renewables in those states. Ouch!
February 17, 2016 at 2:01 pm
OK… so you go to Bloomberg’s site you enter your email to get access the to “client” data aka “fact sheet” and they send you a 42 page pdf file…
$329 B of investment in 2015… of which $199 B is ” Renewable Energy/Asset Finance”, $20 B is in Digital Energy and Storage Asset Finance, $67 B is in Small Distributive Capacity.
It is not possible to review the data that went into the generation of the above numbers… in the footnotes “Total values include estimates for undisclosed deals.”
No detailed break downs or references in this report, that I could find regarding sources that went into “creating” these numbers and claims… (yes there are some break downs but they are incomplete and don’t add up… )
The 2014 report produced by Bloomberg and the Frankfort School has some sources cited, which I found informative…
http://fs-unep-centre.org/sites/default/files/attachments/key_findings.pdf
In the process of digging for more detail.. in the cites I came across this.
A report by the United Nations Environment Programme
GREEN ENERGY CHOICES: The Benefits, Risks and Trade-Offs of Low-Carbon Technologies for Electricity Production
http://apps.unep.org/publications/index.php?option=com_pub&task=download&file=011913_en
This was a good read.. worth the time.
And this one I am in the process of reading… Global Statue of Renewable 2015, REN 21. (I am still unclear on who is funding the group and the lead authors…)
http://www.ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/REN12-GSR2015_Onlinebook_low1.pdf
But these numbers are for 2014….
In order for claims to be viewed as creditable, the data and methodology used to generated those claims needs to be available to be reviewed…. and without that, the claims should be viewed (by any reasonable person) has questionable at best.
Would this “fact sheet” produced by Bloomberg survive a “peer review” process???
This is a great site, a wealth of information, I am sadden to see the creditably tarnished by these kinds of posts.
Are there other current “sources” on this issue that cite transparent and “reviewable” data?
February 17, 2016 at 2:08 pm
Reblogged this on A Green Road Daily News.
February 17, 2016 at 2:50 pm
The oil prices are low as the Saudi decided to crash all the frackters in the world by driving down the price of oil with the added benefit of weakening the Syrian and Iranian governments which the Sunni clerics in Saudi Arabia hate. The actual price of oil is about $1 a barrel as that is what it costs the Saudi to produce a barrel of oil. all the rest is a monopoly known as OPEC. Renewables are not soaring, they still cost more than fossil fuels, a lot more. You notice the money in solar per the graft is about the same as in 2011, four years ago. The politicians to make solar and wind go steal money from one set of taxpayers and give it to another. Solar city is an example. Hundreds of millions stolen from the taxpayers and given to Solar city,a wonderful business plan if you are dishonest.
February 17, 2016 at 5:46 pm
Tom, you – of all people – should not go around accusing people of being dishonest.
February 21, 2016 at 12:36 am
There are a few large fields in SA that produce $10/barrel oil. I’ve never heard of $1 oil other than that produced 100 years ago. Certainly it’s not the OPEC aggregate by any means. CAPEX/production has been soaring for a decade or more for all the big public companies.
FSLR has kept up its price during the crash, which I wasn’t expecting; I was hoping for more shares in the $20 range, but here we are in the $60’s, and talk of undervaluation is happening. SPWR still has moments where it correlates with oil prices but I have no interest in overweighting my position there, especially if we’re nearing a bear market.
February 17, 2016 at 5:58 pm
Solar PV stocks are moribund. Even these last few days of big stock market rallying and big rallying in oil prices, after putting in a double bottom in the $20’s…. even after the rah-rah (but ultimately toothless) Paris “accord”. Nowhere. Big investors are happy to bet money on ANYthing which will give them a fast return. They check their (disgraceful) ideology at the trading room door. So, I take it as a serious sign of something wrong in the solar sector that the re-rise in oil is doing nothing for the value of solar stocks. Today was a great example; All market sectors rallied 1-2% yet again, and oil was up yet again, with oil-price friendly news from Iran adding to oil’s rally…. yet solar stocks went nowhere, or down. SunPower announced their earnings in after hours….. and proceeded to go….. nowhere.
Something’s wrong in this story.
February 19, 2016 at 3:35 am
And thats about halve ot the money spent on seeking for oil.
February 21, 2016 at 8:50 am
Not so long ago I was convinced that fuel prices could only go up (because we passed peak crude in 2006). I was forgetting that the ‘free market’ is a fiction, and now suspect that the price is being manipulated downwards by those who control its extraction purely so that those who oppose the concept of free energy can continue to argue that it’s ‘too expensive’.
I’ve been looking at the moon a lot lately. It shines very brightly, reminding me of all that free energy passing us by (anathema to those who would enslave us all in their corporate wet dreams).