Bloomberg: Clean Energy Investment Dropped 43% in Worst Quarter Since 2013

[GliderGuider]

Clean Energy Investment Dropped 43% in Worst Quarter Since 2013

Global investment in clean energy fell to the lowest in more than three years as demand for new renewable energy sources slumped in China, Japan and Europe.

Third-quarter spending was $42.4 billion, down 43 percent from the same period last year and the lowest since the $41.8 billion reported in the first quarter of 2013, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in a report Monday.

Financing for large solar and wind energy plants sank as governments cut incentives for clean energy and costs declined, said Michael Liebreich, founder and chairman of the advisory board of the London-based research company, a unit of Bloomberg LP. Total investment for this year is on track to be “well below” last year’s record of $348.5 billion, according to New Energy Finance.

The third-quarter numbers “are worryingly low even compared to the subdued trend we saw” in the first two quarters, Liebreich said in a statement. “Key markets such as China and Japan are pausing for a deep breath.”
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Part of the reason for the steep decline in the quarter was a slowdown following strong spending in the first half of the year on offshore wind. Investors poured $20.1 billion into European offshore wind farms in the first and second quarters, “a runaway record,” according to Abraham Louw, an analyst for energy economics with New Energy Finance. That was followed by a “summer lull,” with $2.4 billion in spending in the third quarter.

While project investment sank, a bright spot for the industry was venture capital and private equity funding for new technology startups, which climbed 73 percent to $3.2 billion. That included more than $2 billion for two Chinese companies developing electric vehicles, and $220 million for a U.S. solar financing company.

[NNadir]

1. "Clean" is a rather poor word for this, um, "technology," as is "investment" as a term for...

...spending money on it.

It's increasingly obvious that all the money in the world won't make it work.

It hasn't worked; it isn't working and it won't work, and the reason is physics.

[kristopher]

2. Physics my ass.

"the reason is physics"

You either don't know what you're talking about or choose to misinform.

Baseload vs. Flexibility: Standing the Traditional Generation Model on its Head
October 10, 2016
By Clint Wilder

For years — actually decades — the conventional wisdom about electric power has gone something like this: clean generation sources like wind and solar power are great, supplementing the energy mix with an increasing share of carbon-free electrons. But their intermittency is a huge issue. We will always need the 24/7 baseload generation powered by nuclear or fossil-fuel (or, where available, biomass or geothermal) generators as the basis of a safe, reliable, and affordable electricity supply.

Now jump to June of this year, when Pacific Gas & Electric announced it wants to decommission the 2.2-GW Diablo Canyon nuclear plant when its current license expires in 2025. Cost is a key factor of course; PG&E projects that the levelized wholesale cost of relicensed Diablo Canyon power (from 2025 to 2045) would be 14.9 cents/kWh, compared with 9.8 cents/kWh for what California regulators call preferred resources (mainly renewables and efficiency). A decision on the plant closure is pending with state regulators, but cost is not the only issue.

“Having a 24/7 nuclear plant, from a grid operator’s standpoint — that is a real problem,” says David Olsen, a member of the board of governors of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid serving 30 million people in most of California and a small part of Nevada. “Dealing with 2,200 MW coming in at every minute — we have to design our grid around that inflexibility. ‘Baseload’ refers to an old paradigm that has to go away.”

Welcome to a very new energy world.

Olsen’s assessment, which is echoed by many other California grid experts, regulators, and utility executives, completely flips the old paradigm. In a world of minimum or even negative overall load growth, ever-increasing distributed solar generation and energy storage behind the meter, and emerging ‘load-shifters’ like electric vehicles, variable generation resources become more valuable, not less....

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/10/baseload-vs-flexibility-standing-the-traditional-generation-model-on-its-head.html

Another Strong Year for China’s Wind Industry
October 11, 2016
By Liming Qiao

The Chinese wind market continued to power ahead during the first half of 2016. According to the Chinese Wind Energy Association’s unofficial estimate, H1 installations were 9-10 GW, which indicates that this year’s total should be over 20 GW again....

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/10/another-strong-year-for-china-s-wind-industry.html

[NickB79]

3. "The Chinese wind market continued to power ahead during the first half of 2016."

And then the second half of 2016 kicked in. Time will tell how long this lull lasts.

The third-quarter numbers “are worryingly low even compared to the subdued trend we saw” in the first two quarters, Liebreich said in a statement. “Key markets such as China and Japan are pausing for a deep breath.”

[kristopher]

4. ---File Removal Complete---

Baseload vs. Flexibility: Standing the Traditional Generation Model on its Head
October 10, 2016
By Clint Wilder

For years — actually decades — the conventional wisdom about electric power has gone something like this: clean generation sources like wind and solar power are great, supplementing the energy mix with an increasing share of carbon-free electrons. But their intermittency is a huge issue. We will always need the 24/7 baseload generation powered by nuclear or fossil-fuel (or, where available, biomass or geothermal) generators as the basis of a safe, reliable, and affordable electricity supply.

Now jump to June of this year, when Pacific Gas & Electric announced it wants to decommission the 2.2-GW Diablo Canyon nuclear plant when its current license expires in 2025. Cost is a key factor of course; PG&E projects that the levelized wholesale cost of relicensed Diablo Canyon power (from 2025 to 2045) would be 14.9 cents/kWh, compared with 9.8 cents/kWh for what California regulators call preferred resources (mainly renewables and efficiency). A decision on the plant closure is pending with state regulators, but cost is not the only issue.

“Having a 24/7 nuclear plant, from a grid operator’s standpoint — that is a real problem,” says David Olsen, a member of the board of governors of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid serving 30 million people in most of California and a small part of Nevada. “Dealing with 2,200 MW coming in at every minute — we have to design our grid around that inflexibility. ‘Baseload’ refers to an old paradigm that has to go away.”

Welcome to a very new energy world.

Olsen’s assessment, which is echoed by many other California grid experts, regulators, and utility executives, completely flips the old paradigm. In a world of minimum or even negative overall load growth, ever-increasing distributed solar generation and energy storage behind the meter, and emerging ‘load-shifters’ like electric vehicles, variable generation resources become more valuable, not less...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/10/baseload-vs-flexibility-standing-the-traditional-generation-model-on-its-head.html

The trend lines and the forces behind them are crystal clear and written in stone. The anti-renewable nuclear acolytes try to spin normal and unavoidable variability into some sort reason to feel unease, which it is not.