2009 – The Year of Alternative Energy Investments – For Everybody Else

According to the Wall Street Journal, North America came in fourth place (in Alt Energy Asset Investments) in 2009 behind the EU, China, and South America.  It’s likely that 1) the rapid expansion of credit in China and 2) the willingness of the Chinese government to hoard and stockpile all things energy/commodities helped them pass us by.  Here’s an excerpt from this morning’s Environmental Capital blog at the WSJ:

Totalling up spending by venture capitalists, governments, asset financiers and so forth, the green eye shades at NEF found $37.3 billion invested in Asia-Oceania, versus $32 billion for the Americas. Europe plus got $42.2 billion.

Overall, considering that 2009 was the depth of the Great Recession and credit markets were chilly, clean energy investments continued to do well. Total new investments were $145 billion, down only 6.5% from all-time high of $155 billion in 2008. Increases in government spending and small-scale (think rooftop solar) projects rose, while spending by venture capitalist and private equity firms plunged.

Most of the money that NEF tracked went to asset financing — building wind farms, solar arrays and what not. And as you drill down into the data, things get interesting. We totalled up data from all four quarters and found that the European Union led the pack with $33.6 billion in asset investments, China came in next with $13.6 billion, followed by South America ($11.3 billion) and then North America ($7.9 billion.) Globally, most money went to the most mature renewable energy — wind — then solar and biomass in a distant second and third.