Renewables investment double that for coal and gas

A total of $266bn was invested in new renewables capacity in 2015 – more than double the estimated $130bn invested in coal and gas power stations – according to the tenth edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report.

The report says that, for the first time, developing countries’ investments – which were up 19% in 2015 – topped developed nations’ (which were down 8%). The report covers all renewables excluding large hydro (above 50 MW).

The report says that this shift in investment towards developing countries – which saw 17 times the level of investment last year compared to 2004 – can be attributed to:

UNEP also says that 2015 was the first time that newly installed renewables, excluding large hydro, topped the capacity added from all conventional technologies. According to the report renewables made up 54% of added capacity of all technologies last year (though load factors will vary). Around 134 GW of renewables were added worldwide in 2015 compared to 106 GW in 2014 and 87 GW in 2013. Solar PV and wind power dominated the renewables market and together added 118 GW of capacity (56 GW and 62 GW respectively).

UNEP estimates that were it not for these renewables, annual global carbon emissions would have been around 1.5 gigatonnes higher in 2015.

Despite these figures, renewables still represent a small minority of the world’s total installed power capacity at around 16%. The actual electricity generated by those renewables was around 10% of global generation in 2015 (up from 9% in 2014).