All Clean Energy Insight Content

As the global installed base of renewable electricity generation capacity continues to expand, China is increasing in importance both as a consumer of green technologies, and as an exporter. The world’s biggest manufacturing nation in solar PV cells is increasingly consuming its own output in this area, and China is also ramping up production of wind turbines fast enough to supply half of a colossal domestic demand – and is established as a major exporter too.

The global renewable generation context

The expansion of renewable energy sources in Germany has been an unprecedented success. The country has emerged as Europe’s leader in wind utilisation and biofuel production. Also, despite being geographically positioned with modest solar radiation, Germany has been experiencing a remarkable boom in solar energy. It is the largest solar thermal market in Europe and a major producer and consumer of PV power systems. Over the past few years, the share of total final energy consumption from renewables has more than doubled, standing at 8.6 % in 2007.

Heat supply has been the Cinderella area in the green energy field - the emphasis has so far mainly been on electricity. But things are changing, in recognition of the fact that, as the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee put it in its new report on the Economics of Renewable Energy, two-fifths of the UK’s energy usage is on heat, and only one fifth on electricity.

Delegates, speakers and exhibitors at the World Biofuels Markets conference in Brussels in February 2009 were putting on a brave face about their prospects for the future, following a year in which the falling price of oil, European concerns over sustainability of biodiesel and bioethanol, and the credit crunch had knocked the industry’s confidence – there had even been fears the industry would be killed off completely.