While the world added record levels of renewable energy in 2016, investments in renewable energy were 23 percent lower than in 2015. That’s due to a greater than 10 percent drop in the average dollar capital expenditure per megawatt for solar photovoltaics and wind.
Wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-energy, geothermal, and hydro added 185.5 gigawatts equal to 55 percent of all new global energy capacity in 2016. That was 8 percent higher than the amount added in 2015 according to Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2017, a study by UNEP and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Investment in renewables, totaling $241.6 billion (excluding hydro), was 2 times larger than the investment in fossil fuels, raising the global electricity provided by renewables by 1 percent to 11.3 percent in 2016. ENN