Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) — Developers and financiers will
invest $1.9 trillion building clean-energy power plants
worldwide from 2012 through 2018 as demand for electricity
increases, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Development costs for solar and wind farms and other types
of renewable-energy plants will increase to $327 billion in 2018
from about $200 billion last year, according to a report posted
on Pew’s website today.
Those figures may increase even more if governments
establish national energy policies that include commitments for
renewable power, Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew Clean
Energy Program in Washington, said yesterday in a telephone
interview. The incentives should have defined durations to give
the industry clarity.
“Policy does matter,” she said. “You have to have a
renewable-energy target or a standard. Or something in the tax
code. Or eliminate market barriers. There are different policies
you can use to get there, but you’ve got to do something. You
can’t just have no national energy policy.”
Global energy consumption is expected to increase 47
percent from 2010 to 2035, and cumulative investment in the
renewable-energy industry may approach a $5.9 trillion over the
same period, according to the report, which was prepared by Pike
Research LLC.
“Industry has said very clearly to us, ‘What we need is,
we need to have certainty,’ ” Cuttino said. “There has been an
unlevel playing field, tilted in favor of incumbent
technologies. And we need to get over that hump.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
Justin Doom in New York at
jdoom1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
