We were struck that five of the six of the stories headlining this morning’s Clean Technology Bulletin, put out by Barclays Capital’s Vishal Shah, were about China. For us this is yet another, all-be-it informal, indication of the country’s emergence as a renewable energy leader.
Also, the bulletin’s five Chinese-focused stories are on solar generation.
The bulletin leads with ReneSola pulling the plug on its Dynamic Green Energy acquisition; It follows with a story on Chinese solar panel maker Yingli Green Energy’s stated goal to cut solar photovoltaic power cost to less than 1 yuan/kWh by 2010; Third on the list is a story on a Chinese-lead effort to produce cheaper silicon-based panels. There is then a story on China’s solar company CNPV Solar Power, entering into a long-term sales agreement with Galip Solar of Germany. The fifth story on the bulletin is on Chinese solar PV maker Solarfun Power plan to increase production from 550 megawatts to 700 megawatts by April 2010. The final story on the bulletin is not Chinese. It focuses on New Mexico utility PNM.
How important of a player is China in the green energy sector? Well, for starters the country plans to spend $220 billion in clean energy over the next two years and the country’s renewable energy market is estimated by some to be worth as much as $1 trillion a year.
The Chinese appetite for green energy helped ensure that in 2009, a majority of cleantech investments went to Asia, which for the first time got more investments than the Americas. Bloomberg News reports that investments in sun, wind and biofuels in the Asia-Pacific region attracted $37.3 billion in new investments in 2009, up 25 percent from 2008, compared to $32 billion in North and South America.