Market Acceptance of Sustainable Energy Growing

August 18th, 2008

We are approaching a time when sustainable energy will not require tax credits and government subsidies. New money is flooding into alternative energy investments from the private markets all over the world. It’s as if everyone has finally figured it out that we can’t continue to depend on the same energy sources.

Global investment in sustainable energy rose by 60 percent in 2007. Much of the investment went to financing assets — building plants to generate alternative energy. Wind power, especially, attracted investment this year.

Of course it didn’t help that the credit markets tightened in 2008 and the stock markets didn’t receive IPOs well. That drove many companies to mergers and acquisitions.

On the whole, alternative energy investments have not only continued to grow, they have broadened and diversified, taking in innovative financing structures for distributed renewable generation and demand-side management. Ordinary people (outside Europe, Canada and California, where sustainable energy gained acceptance long ago) are adopting alternative energy, creating more demand for innovative sources and more tolerance for changes in lifestyle.

Another sign of the market’s acceptance of the sustainable energy is greater activity in next-generation technologies, such as cellulose ethanol, thin-film solar technologies and energy efficiency. Wind continues to dominate sustainable energy investment, but the portfolio of available technologies has both widened and deepened (as existing technologies are refined and new ones come online). This is partly in response to changing supply/demand patterns (e.g. silicon shortages, or competition between food and fuel from food-based ethanol feedstocks), but also reflects improved efficiencies and decreasing costs as renewable technologies become more widely used.

According to the United Nations’ Environment Programme study on Sustainable Energy, the flow of dollars toward renewable energy will not stop. The trend has broadened to Asia, where China has taken the lead. This is a good sign — it’s something we can all support.

Tags: alternative energy energy efficiency renewable technologies solar technologies sustainable energy wind power

Entry Filed under: Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Energy Technology