U.S. and China may double renewable stimulus spending

Stimulus spending on ventures such as wind parks and solar farms may more than double to US$57.8 billion in 2010 from US$24.3 billion this year, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of New Energy Finance, a London-based consulting firm. Green projects may secure US$55.6 billion in stimulus funds in 2011.

Countries are still holding about 91 percent of the US$177 billion promised for clean-energy development because most projects haven't been evaluated, a New Energy Finance report in October showed. Of the remaining stimulus money, US$20 billion may be spent in 2012 and US$5.2 billion in 2013, Liebreich said.

“Investments largely stalled in the second half of last year,” said Liebreich, founder of New Energy. Investments in the first quarter of 2009 dropped to the lowest since the first quarter of 2006, he said, as the global financial crisis spooked investors and forced banks to freeze lending.

Spending by governments will increase in the next two years as it takes time for the stimulus money to make its way through national bureaucracies and reach the projects, Liebreich said at the Clean Energy Expo in Singapore Wednesday.

Administrative hurdles remain for the majority of developers accessing stimulus money, with just 9 percent of the total funds having been disbursed from economic stimulus programs designed to pull economies out of recession, according to New Energy Finance.

The U.S. has committed US$66.6 billion and China has pledged US$46.8 billion to stimulus-led clean energy spending, Liebreich said. That compares with US$11.3 billion by the European Union and US$8 billion by Japan. Energy-efficient projects accounted for about US$43 billion of the spending, renewables secured about US$40 billion and spending on grid infrastructure was US$32 billion.

Global new investment in clean-energy projects may drop by as much as 23 percent this year to US$120 billion after more than tripling to US$155 billion in 2008 from US$36 billion in 2004, Liebreich said.

The pace of investment has slowed, even as venture capitalists such as John Doerr herald clean energy as “the largest economic opportunity of the coming century.”

Doerr, an early investor in Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., said in a Bloomberg interview this month that the U.S. is “not well-positioned” to be a leader in clean energy development.

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