Private sector investments since 2007 in green companies and technologies globally now total $2,405,182,005,199 worldwide, according to the Aug 2011 update of the GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD® released by Ethical Markets Media.
According to Der Spiegel, Germany now produces 20.8% of its electricity from renewable sources, reports Treehugger. That's an increase of 15 percentage points since 2000, with an an increase of 2.5 percentage points in the last year alone.
Ernst & Young's latest report on investing in renewables places the US as the top country for solar, in the 30+ states that have RPS and other favorable renewable energy regimes:
If we drop our investments in clean energy the US is at risk of making the "biggest mistake in its entire history" Vice President Joe Biden warned delegates at the National Clean Energy Summit yesterday. "We are at an inflection point in our history. If we don't make these investments and set these goals we are going to lose."
"One strategy is to find an investment area so certain to grow that it will be around long after market traumas subside. Green investing, which offers the added potential that innovative companies will get snapped up by bigger firms, could be one of those areas," writes Andrew Leckey in today's Los Angeles Times.
The NY Times carried this story from ClimateWire reporter Joel Kirkland about the recent boom in tax-equity funds being developed by major banks and large solar companies: "Cash-Rich Companies Begin to Make Renewable Energy Investments" The article sums up the situation nicely:
Our friends at Sungevity are up to good things, and it's no wonder Citigroup is adding Sungevity to their roster of solar partners including SunPower and SolarCity as part of an overall $50 Billion effort to invest in clean tech and alternative energy.
Our latest press release hit the top spot on Google Alert for the terms Solar-Finance, as well as Clean-Energy-Finance. Thanks to Adam, Larry and Kim for the great quotes!
We're getting a lot of calls on this one from interested solar developers who want to offer their own financing programs, and reap the benefit of annual income from solar leases. If you're a developer looking for financing, we can help.
This time it's Citi Group and SunPower teaming up on a $105 million deal to back 20-year leases for residential solar power systems.
This comes on the back of a slew of announcements from Google, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and others who are all joining up with large solar companies to finance rooftop solar, using leasing and tax-equity structures.
The U.S. solar energy industry continued to be one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy in Q1 2011 according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight's Q1 2011 report, released recently by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research.
