Asia Pacific leads charge in power generation investments, with renewables playing a key role: BNEF

Asia Pacific is projected to see as much investment in power generation to 2040 as the rest of the world combined, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s (BNEF) recently released “New Energy Outlook 2017”. China and India alone account for 28% and 15% of total global investment.

The bulk of the region’s investment will go to renewables, reflecting the global trend. BNEF expects renewables to account for US$7.4 trillion, or 72%, of investments in new power generation capacity worldwide to 2040.

Of this, wind will take US$3.3 trillion and solar US$2.8 trillion. These two sources combined are estimated to make up 48% of installed capacity and 34% of electricity generation worldwide by 2040.

Other highlights from the report include:

• Global power demand to grow by 58% between now and 2040, or 2% per year
• Gas is a transition fuel, but not in the way most people think
• China will go big on renewables, with wind and solar capacity increasing eight-fold to
• Lithium-ion batteries for energy storage to become a $20 billion per year market by 2040, a tenfold increase from today

By: BloombergNEF