Record spending on Chinese solar projects heats up investment in renewable energy

Chinese solar investment has hit record levels, pushing up global spending on renewable energy projects to US$175 billion during the first three quarters, up 16 per cent from the same period last year, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report.

Global spending in the third quarter gained 12 per cent to US$55 billion from US$48.9 billion a year earlier, the London-based research company said yesterday.

Almost US$20 billion of that outlay on renewables was in China, where solar investing soared to US$12.2 billion from US$7.5 billion.

The world's largest solar market may add 14 gigawatts of capacity this year, almost a third of the global total, as more large-scale projects are built, the report said. Japan, the second-biggest solar market, increased spending 17 per cent to US$8.6 billion in the third quarter.

"The patterns of investment are different geographically, with China taking more of a role and other parts of Asia coming on strong, particularly Japan," Washington-based BNEF analyst Ethan Zindler said. "The make-up is really quite different compared with as recently as 2011 or 2012, when Europe accounted for a major share of the total."

Investment in Europe tumbled to US$8.8 billion, the lowest in more than eight years, as spending in Britain, Italy and Germany fell.