New investment in ‘green energy’ world-wide fell to $287.5 billion in 2016 (18% down on 2015’s record investment and 9% lower than 2014’s figure), despite a record $30 billion spent on offshore wind, according to figures from
an annual report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

The drop in spending partly reflects a fall in the price of equipment for solar and wind power, and partly a “marked cooling” in China and Japan. Investment in ‘green energy’ fell by 26% in China and by 43% in Japan.

Justin Wu, head of Asia for BNEF, said: “After years of record-breaking investment driven by some of the world’s most generous feed-in tariffs, China and Japan are cutting back on building new large-scale projects and shifting towards digesting the capacity they have already put in place.

“China is facing slowing power demand and growing wind and solar curtailment. The government is now focused on investing in grids and reforming the power market so that the renewables in place can generate to their full potential.

“In Japan, future growth will come not from utility-scale projects, but from roof-top solar systems, installed by consumers attracted by the increasingly favourable economics of self-consumption.”