Africa And Asia Set To Usurp European Renewables
New research from consultancy firm EY has proposed the idea that Europe is going to lose a significant share of the global renewables market to Africa and Asia.
After a drop of 11% in global investment in 2013, EY predict that “an abundance of opportunities in new markets, new technologies and new sources of capital all signal brighter times ahead” in their latest quarterly Renewable energy country attractiveness index (RECAI) report, released on Tuesday.
“The 2013 fall in global investment reflects another challenging year for the renewables sector, with policy uncertainty in particular reducing investor appetite across many markets,” said Gil Forer, EY’s Global Cleantech Leader. However, it also reflects a maturing sector, with falling technology costs filtering through to lower investment requirements: increasing the dollar power per megawatt.
“We must now therefore focus on what needs to be done to maximize investment and deployment in light of the fact renewable energy is becoming increasingly cost competitive.”
According to EY, there are (at least) 10 developments they expect to “shake up” the attractiveness index over the next 12 to 18 months. First on that list of 10 is the growth of markets such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Uruguay are expected to “displace European markets” which have limited growth potential.
Other markets, such as Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Russia could all be making plays over the next few months which might improve their standing on the attractiveness index, while the UK, Germany, and countries in the Nordic region are likely to be challenged by China, the US, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and even India’s offshore markets.
EY have developed an infographic which lays out a lot of the key facts from the report, which can be seen below:
The full attractiveness index report can be seen here (PDF) and more in depth analysis has been provided by EY available here.
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“Europe is going to lose a significant share of the global renewables market to Africa and Asia.” This is a poor choice of words. The data are about demand; European consumers lose nothing is demand grows faster in China, as is happening now. When we talk about “market share”, we are usually thinking about producers, especially manufacturers of panels and equipment, since the sales of installers are strictly in line with local demand. European manufacturers have already lost the market in modules to China, and this can’t get any worse. They are SFIK holding up well in supplying production equipment and inverters. In the latter case, I wonder for how much longer..