Renewable investment surges in emerging economies, BNEF study finds

November 23, 2015
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India joined China, Brazil, Chile and south Africa in the top five most attractive markets. Source: IBC Solar

Investment in clean energy surged in emerging economies during 2014, the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Climatescope report has found.

According to BNEF, 2014 was the first year that more than half of all investment in renewable energy was for projects based in emerging economies.

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The Climatescope study monitors investment in 55 developing countries including Brazil, Mexico, India and China. The latest release tallied clean energy investment worth US$126 billion during 2014, up 39% on 2013 levels. Investment between emerging economies accounted for US$79 billion.

The financing equated to 50.4GW of new generating capacity with China responsible for 35GW of this.

Climatescope also issues an investment attractiveness index with China comfortably at the top. Brazil, Chile, South Africa and India, respectively, make up the rest of the top five. With runaway economic growth in China and Brazil cooling, the report notes that the levels achieved are even more impressive.

India’s states were also individually ranked with all well behind the national government’s score. West Bengal, the lowest ranked state, had a score lower than Ethiopia. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were the top two Indian states.

The study, which is supported by the UK and US governments, considers each country’s policy framework and electricity market, the existing clean energy value chain, the cost of finance and the robustness of efforts to reduce emissions. The full dataset can be downloaded from BNEF.

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