Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2019

The latest issue of this report – which has tracked trends and opportunities in the sector since 2004 –shows that global investment in renewable energy capacity hit $272.9 billion in 2018, far outstripping investments in new fossil fuel generation. 2018 was the fifth successive year renewables capacity investment exceeded $250 billion. Yes, the 2018 global investment figures were 12% down on the previous year, but this is not a step backwards. Renewable energy, particularly solar photovoltaics, is getting cheaper.

Looking across 2010-2019, the trend of heavy investment becomes even clearer. The report estimates that a total of $2.6 trillion will have been invested in renewable capacity (excluding large hydro) over that period. This corresponds to an estimated 1.2 terawatts of new renewable energy capacity over this decade, more than the entire electricity generating fleet of the U.S. today, and roughly quadrupling the figure of global renewables capacity commissioned at the end of 2009.

Several unexpected findings emerge from the decade perspective taken in the Focus Chapter of this report. One is the meteoric rise of solar PV to become not just the biggest renewable power technology in terms of investment – onshore wind was the number one back in 2009 – but also the most added generation source of any kind during the period. Another has been the precipitous price fall in both solar PV and wind, and a third has been the steady improvements in efficiency of those technologies