New Hampshire, USA --
The clean energy industry’s performance over the past year can be
seen as a classic good news-bad news situation, according to the experts
at Clean Energy, a research and advisory firm devoted to the clean-tech
sector.
The industry saw dazzling growth, success, and rising stock
prices in some sectors – most notably solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment
– but downward trends and policy and finance hurdles in others.
The report begins by pointing to the increase in solar PV adoption
over the globe and notes that 2013 was the first time in history that
global solar installations (36.5 GW) were greater than global wind power
installations (35.5 GW). Wind had its weakest year since 2008, the
report said.
Clean Edge believes this is a trend that will continue, predicting
that solar PV will experience double-digit growth in capacity year upon
year and that by 2023 revenue growth in the PV industry will be $158.4
billion despite that fact that installed prices will continue to fall.
The report authors predict an installed PV system price as low at $1.21
per watt by 2023. Over the same period, wind will see modest expansion
with a revenue growth prediction of $93.8 billion by 2023.
Clean Energy Trends also tracks biofuels deployment. “We project that
the global markets for both ethanol and biodiesel will grow an average
4.5 percent annually over the next decade, reaching a combined $145.6
billion in 2023, with biodiesel prices falling and ethanol pricing
remaining fairly stable,” it said.
Trends for 2014
In the 2014 Clean Energy Trends Report, Clean Edge showcases five
trends to watch for the coming year. For the first time, this year the
authors looked at green building and electric and hybrid vehicles. Since
2000, these sectors have experienced compound annual growth rates of
68.9 percent and 38 percent respectively, according to Clean Edge.
The first trend to keep an eye on is in the utility sector. Clean
Edge believes that in 2014 we will start to see “enlightened utilities
begin to embrace distributed generation assets.” As rooftop solar
continues its steady march towards adoption, utilities will continue to
grapple with how to maintain healthy businesses in the face of declining
electricity sales. “Some forward-looking utilities, if not fully
embracing a distributed energy future, are making investments, forming
partnerships, and acknowledging that the threat of DG might also be a
business opportunity,” the report states. Clean Edge points to some
examples of this that took place in 2013, such as Edison International’s
purchase of SoCore Energy, a Chicago-based rooftop solar developer that
does work in the commercial space. It also uses Duke Energy’s
investment in Clean Power Finance as another example of utilities
starting to think about profiting from distributed PV.
This type of movement in the utility sector is taking place in Europe
and Asia, too, said Clean Edge. German utility RWE is leading this
transition by overhauling its entire business model while in Japan, a
country that installed 7 GW of PV in 2013, consumers are seeking
technological solutions to their energy woes in a post-Fukushima world.
“The country already has some 30,000 homeowners who use fuel cells like
Panasonic’s Ene-Farm to generate power on site,” said Clean Edge.
Energy storage is also mentioned as something to keep an eye on and
the report said that consumer-sited battery technology is comparable to
where PV was in the early 2000s with some early adopters already
onboard.
This disruption in the utility sector will have a huge impact on
regulators, said Clean Edge. The report quotes former FERC chairman Jon
Wellinghoff saying that regulators will need to change from being rate
setters for monopoly markets to become rule setters for competitive
markets.
Cities Spearheading Change
Interestingly, the 2014 Clean Energy Trends report explains that
cities are now starting to take leadership roles in the transition to a
low-carbon economy as a way to buffer themselves against the devastating
effects of disasters caused, at least in part, by climate change. New
York, Seattle, Copenhagen, Sydney and others are showcased in the report
as setting initiatives that seek to lower carbon emissions within their
city limits.
Many of those low-carbon initiatives center around the building
sector, and Clean Edge predicts a rise in net-zero energy buildings in
the coming years. The report points to several high-profile net-zero
energy buildings that have been erected over the past two years and said
that these buildings are raising awareness and helping to prove the
net-zero concept.
Although skeptics may contend that
examples of net zero buildings are isolated, that will change
dramatically in coming years. The European Union has mandated that all
new public buildings must achieve “nearly zero” energy status by the end
of 2018, and that all other new buildings achieve the same status by
the end of 2020.
The marriage of clean tech and the Internet is creating a growing
“cleanweb” sector and this is another trend to watch according to Clean
Edge. The cleanweb is essentially the use of big data and the Internet
to manage resources more efficiently or deploy renewable energy.
Everything from ridesharing to financing large-scale renewable energy
projects is part of the clean web. Venture Capitalists are paying close
attention to this sector as well as we pointed out in our 2014 Renewable Energy Finance Outlook.
Finally the report shows the growing interest in vertical farming.
Clean Edge authors believe that as the world population grows vertical
farming will become more and more mainstream. This is the last of its
five trends.
The full 24-page Clean Energy Trends 2014 report can be downloaded for free at the Clean Edge website.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/03/renewable-energy-trends-illuminated-in-clean-edges-market-report
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