Global renewable investments up 17% in 2014 but biofuels investments fall 8%

In Germany, global investments in renewable energy rebounded strongly last year, registering a solid 17% increase to $270 billion in 2014 after two years of declines and brushing aside the challenge from sharply lower crude oil prices.

According to UNEP’s 9th annual Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2015, prepared by the Frankfurt School –UNEP collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance (the Centre) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) the main cause were major expansions of solar installations in China and Japan and record investments in offshore wind projects.

According to Udo Steffens, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, however, the oil price is only likely to dampen investor confidence in parts of the sector, such as solar in oil-exporting countries, and biofuels in most parts of the world.

Biofuels fell 8% to $5.1 billion, biomass and waste-to-energy dropped 10% to $8.4 billion.