Our Future Will Be Powered by the Sun, Water and Wind

Our Future Will Be Powered by the Sun, Water and Wind – the reasons why

Here’s Why Our Future Will Be Powered by the Sun, Water and Wind https://www.thestreet.com/story/13691371/1/here-s-why-our-future-will-be-powered-by-the-sun-water-and-wind.html
The time may have finally come to make money investing in renewable energy. Kim Iskyan, Sep 1, 2016

Coal and oil are slowly being replaced by sunlight, water and wind as civilization’s main energy sources, and there will be a lot of money to be made from this shift.
Renewable energy comes from nature. The most common forms are solar (from sunlight), hydro (from water) and wind power.
Renewable energy can generally be replenished faster than it is used.
Last year, global renewable energy investment hit nearly $350 billion, a record and an increase of 11% from 2014. China was the biggest contributor, accounting for 36% of the total or $125 billion.
Between this year and 2020, renewables will be the biggest source of energy growth, according to the International Energy Agency.

But this year has so far seen a slowdown in investment in renewables.

Globally, investment dropped 23% in the first half this year from a year earlier to $116.4 billion. Second-quarter investment fell 32% from a year earlier. Last year’s massive Chinese renewables push created a hangover in 2016, as the country’s growth in power demand has slowed, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

As a result, China’s investment in renewable energy has fallen this year.

Another possible reason for the slowdown in investment is that it is getting cheaper to make solar panels. There is also a shift away from smaller solar energy projects to larger ones, which are cheaper on a per-unit basis.

But unlike so-called dirty energy sources, such as coal, renewable energy is just getting started.

Global renewable electricity capacity will rise by more than 700 gigawatts over the next five years, the IEA has predicted.

For context, that is more than double Japan’s total installed power capacity.

Furthermore, renewables will account for nearly two-thirds of the net increase in global power capacity, which is the difference between the amount of new capacity and the scheduled retirements of old power plants. Half that increase will come from wind power and solar photovoltaic panels.

A lot of this growth is expected to come from developing nations.

The United Nations Environment Programme noted that last year was the first one in which emerging economies invested more in the renewables sector than developed economies did.

Last year, developed countries’ investment in renewables dropped 8%, while emerging economies investment was 19% higher than the year before.

China is expected to account for nearly 40% of anticipated renewable power capacity growth to 2020. South Korea has committed to increase investment in renewable energy to about 42 trillion won ($36.6 billion) by 2020, with a focus on wind power, solar farms and eco-friendly power plants.

September 2, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, renewable

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