Renewable Power Generation

Lahmeyer International’s latest REMIPEG update (covering 2012 installations of renewable power capacity) concludes that new additions of renewable power capacity totalled 112GW in 2012, taking global cumulative installed renewable electricity capacity to 1,592GW – with an estimated annual power generation output of 4547-4811TWh a year (See download section opposite for additional charts).

Over the past decade, the demand for renewable energy worldwide has experienced an increase as a result of various factors associated with environmental, political and economic issues. However, the economic crisis which started in earnest in 2009 has left many governments facing a catastrophic situation of high public debt. In many cases, this has led to cuts or removal, immediately or gradually, of incentives for the generation of electricity from renewable sources.

According to the 2012 Q4 Clean Energy Policy & Market Briefing from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), clean energy investment worldwide fell 11% in 2012 $268.7bn from a revised figure of $302.3bn in 2011. The biggest dip was in Spain where investment fell 68% to just $3bn as its government announced a moratorium on subsidies for projects not yet approved. In Italy the drop was 51% to $14.7bn, mainly because of regulatory changes in solar subsidies. In India investment fell 44% while in the USA it fell 32%.