"Renewable energy has become big business," said Eric Martinot, lead
author of Renewables 2005: Global Status Report. Martinot, who is a Senior
Fellow at the Worldwatch Institute and a Lecturer at Tsinghua University
in Beijing, notes that renewable energy is attracting some of the world's
largest companies, including General Electric, Siemens, Sharp, and Royal
Dutch Shell.
The report estimates that nearly 40 million households worldwide heat
their water with solar collectors, most of them installed in the last five
years. Altogether, renewable energy industries provide 1.7 million jobs,
most of them skilled and well paying.
The Global Status Report was compiled by Martinot, working with more than
100 researchers and contributors from at least 20 countries. It provides
an assessment of several renewables technologies -- small hydro, modern
biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels -- that are now competing
with conventional fuels in four distinct markets: power generation, hot
water and space heating, transportation fuels, and rural (off-grid) energy
supplies.
The report finds that government support for renewable energy is growing
rapidly. At least 48 countries now have some type of renewable energy
promotion policy, including 14 developing countries. Most targets are for
shares of electricity production, typically 5-30 percent, by the 2010-2012
timeframe. Mandates for blending biofuels into vehicle fuels have been
enacted in at least 20 states and provinces worldwide as well as in three
key countries-Brazil, China and India.
Government leadership provides the key to market success, according to the
report. The market leaders in renewable energy in 2004 were Brazil in
biofuels, China in solar hot water, Germany in solar electricity, and
Spain in wind power.
Other findings in the report include:
-- The fastest growing energy technology in the world is grid-connected
solar photovoltaic (PV), which grew in existing capacity by 60 percent per
year from 2000-2004, to cover more than 400,000 rooftops in Japan,
Germany, and the United States. Second is wind power capacity, which grew
by 28 percent last year, led by Germany, with almost 17 GW installed as of
2004.
-- Production of biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) exceeded 33 billion
liters in 2004, when ethanol displaced about 3 percent of the 1,200
billion liters of gasoline globally.
-- An estimated US $500 million goes to developing countries each year as
development assistance for renewable energy projects, training, and market
support, with the German Development Finance Group, the World Bank Group,
and the Global Environment Facility providing the majority of these funds,
and dozens of other donors and programs providing the rest.
-- More than 4.5 million "green" power consumers in Europe, the United
States, Canada, Australia, and Japan purchased renewable electricity at
the retail level or via certificates in 2004.
The Global Status Report fills a gap in the international energy-reporting
arena, which has tended to neglect the emerging renewable energy
technologies. Regular updates will be produced in the future. The report
was produced and published by the Worldwatch Institute and released today
at the Beijing International Renewable Energy Conference 2005, sponsored
by the Government of China. This Conference brings together government and
private leaders from around the world, providing a forum for international
leadership on renewable energy and connects the wide variety of
stakeholders that came together at the International Conference for
Renewable Energies in Bonn, Germany, in 2004.