Fall in clean energy investment reflects lowering costs of renewables

Clean energy investments fell 17 percent in the first quarter of 2017, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). This is in line with the overall decrease last year and marked the lowest investment for the quarter since 2013.

That said, the broader decline in investment reflects the falling cost of capital for renewables, which allows investors to install the same power generation capacity at a lower cost. Renewables were the biggest new source of electricity in 2016 even as investment fell to US$287.5 billion from a record US$348.5 billion the year before, said BNEF.

Find out more about the 2017 outlook for clean energy and the drivers of investment here.