Growing Green Market | Green Energy News

March 20, 2005 – Vol.9 No.52

GROWING GREEN MARKET.

Here’s how you do it. Take the market growth figures for the past few years, stretch them out a few years (extend the line on the graph) add in a heavy dose of knowledge of technology, government involvement, and include general trends in consumer preferences as well as in national and world economies and you can get a reasonable account of how well an industry will do a few years into the future. (Provided some unforeseen disaster, or conversely, some unforeseen technological breakthrough doesn’t happen .)

Most market segments in renewable energy have been growing in the past few years, particularly wind and solar energy. Fuel cells and hydrogen technologies, with some government support, have been growing a bit, too.

National governments that have signed Kyoto have a particular interest in low-carbon energy technologies to meet their obligation under the treaty for greenhouse gas reductions. The U.S. government is not as interested in renewables as it once was, but hasn’t abandoned them either. However a number of state governments have embraced green energy by approving Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).

And consumers and some businesses, large and small, because of high gas prices or the war in Iraq or being convinced (finally) that global warming is real, have decided that green energy is the way to go. The popularity of hybrid cars speaks volumes about consumer sentiment.

Clean Edge, an energy research and publishing firm, has determined that the combined market for solar energy, wind energy and fuel cells will exceed $100 billion by 2014. The market for solar photovoltaics (including components and installation) should climb from $7.2 billion in 2004 to $39.2 billion by 2014. Wind power will grow from $8 billion last year to more than $48 billion in 2014. Fuel cells (with hydrogen included) will grow from $900 million to $15 billion plus in the same time period.

In the report Clean Edge also looks at the growth of biomass energy, energy efficiency, concentrating solar power technologies, the building of a hydrogen infrastructure and the popularity of green buildings as key Trends to Watch.

Included in the free report is Nth Power’s data on venture capital investments in U.S.-based energy-technology companies. Those investments, which Nth Power tracks, increased from $509 million in 2003 to $520 million in 2004.

For the free report, Clean Energy Trends 2005, visit Clean Edge at http://www.cleanedge.com/ .