Schlagwort: financial services

Industry maturity and competition for green assets bring €51bn of wind energy investments in 2017

Europe invested a total of €51.2bn in wind energy in 2017.  The development of new farms accounted for €22.3bn of this. This is according to WindEurope’s ‘Financing and Investment Trends’ report released today. The rest of the investment went on the refinancing of existing wind farms, the acquisition of projects and of companies involved in wind and on public market fundraising. The total investment figure was 9% up on 2016.

The €22bn invested in new wind farms was down on the €28bn invested in 2016.  But it covered more capacity – 11.5 GW compared to 10.3 GW – reflecting the falling costs of wind energy.

WindEurope Chief Policy Officer Pierre Tardieu: “With €51.2bn, wind energy accounted for half of all power sector investments in 2017. It’s delivering more capacity for less money. This is largely due to increased competition in auctions and technology advances that are driving cost reductions in the supply chain.”

WindEurope CEO tells industry stakeholders: investment costs are coming down in on- and offshore wind

On February 7 WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson delivered a keynote address at Dentons European Renewables Workshop 2018 in Frankfurt am Main. The workshop discussed the drivers and constraints for investing in renewable energy projects in Europe.

Dickson told attendees that costs are coming down in both on- and offshore wind. “We are financing the same capacity as in previous years for much lower costs,” he said.

He compared offshore wind investments in 2015 and 2017. In 2015, investments of 2.5 GW capacity cost over €13bn – in 2017, investments for this same capacity cost only €7.5bn. This is a cost reduction of almost 60%. Offshore wind, Dickson said, is now attracting major investors, particularly in the financial sector. The financial services industry, including infrastructure funds, pension funds, asset managers and diversified financial services, owned 35% of the offshore wind capacity traded throughout 2017. This compares to only 27% in 2016.