Green Energy becomes Bigger than Fossil Fuel Energy in Europe and USA during 2009

Green Energy has increasingly become mainstream rather than a niche category supported by some environmental activists and hippies.This is proved by the fact that almost half of the Energy Capacity installed in 2009 in the developed world came from Renewable Energy Sources.According to a REN21 report, Europe and US saw more Renewable Energy installations in 2009 than Fossil Fuel Energy Installations.China was not far behind installing a huge 14 GW of Wind Capacity accounting for almost 1/3rd of the total 38 GW of Wind Capacity installed in 2009.According to the REN report a total of 80 GW of Renewable Energy Capacity was installed in 2009 out of the 160 GW of total worldwide newly installed capacity.Solar saw the sharpest  growth at 53% while Wind was not far behind at 32% growth.The massive growth in Green Energy despite the Global Financial Crisis and the failure of the Copenhagen failure,shows the huge momentum behind Clean Energy

Reasons behind Clean Energy Growth

The main reasons behind this huge growth can be listed as follows

1. The decreasing costs of Renewable Energy and increasing costs of Fossil Fuels.While Hydro power and Wind power are near to the grid costs of electricity,other forms like Solar Energy are also fast reaching Grid Parity
2. The opposition towards Dirty Energy Plants like Coal and Oil has made it difficult to get environment clearances for these projects even in developing countries like India
3. Support for Green amongst the European nations has made this region as the prime driver.The 20% Renewable Energy Target by 2020 is forcing power utilities to build Clean Energy Plants.
4. Energy Security is also playing an important role as Europe faces erratic Gas Supply from Russia and USA faces volatile Middle East Oil Supply

Despite the failure of a global agreement on Climate Change,most government are increasingly adopting renewable energy targets which range from 5-30% of their energy generation.Support for Clean Energy through government stimulus programs has played a vital role during 2009 when private capital sources dried up.Even poor and developing countries in Asia are realizing the importance of Renewable Energy and Asia should soon surpass Europe as the centre of Clean Energy growth.

Global Renewable Capacity Continues to Grow in 2009, Fueled by Policy and Ongoing Investment – REN21

The year 2009 was unprecedented in the history of renewable energy, despite the headwinds posed by the global financial crisis, lower oil prices, and slow progress with climate policy. Indeed, as other economic sectors declined around the world, existing renewable capacity continued to grow at rates close to those in previous years, including grid-connected solar PV (53 %), wind power (32 %), solar hot water/heating (21 %), geothermal power (4 %), and hydropower (3 %). Annual production of ethanol and biodiesel increased 10 % and 9 %, respectively, despite layoffs and ethanol plant closures in the United States and Brazil.