Renewable energy currently accounts for 26.3% of all electricity and 12.9% if large-scale hydropower is not included.
At the same time, solar energy has also received more investment than any other renewable energy technology, reaching $1.3 trillion, half of the total renewable energy investment of $2.6 trillion (excluding large hydropower).
Thanks to the advantages of renewable energy bidding, the improvement of power generation efficiency and the reduction of costs caused by fierce competition among manufacturers, the increasing number of investors and the declining interest rates of banks in the past decade have made solar energy more competitive.
Over the past decade, China's investment in renewable energy has ranked first in the world at $758 billion. European countries have invested a total of $698 billion, of which Germany has invested $179 billion and Britain has invested $122 billion. The United States invested $356 billion in renewable energy, while Japan invested $2020 billion in renewable energy. Investment in renewable energy in Spain, Vietnam, Ukraine and South Africa increased fivefold in 2018. Investment in Russia, Taiwan, Morocco, Sweden and the Netherlands more than doubled.
In 2018, solar new installers (108GW) accounted for 65% of the total renewable energy new installers (167GW). In 2018, renewable energy investment ($272.9 billion) was about three times that of global coal and gas power generation, and photovoltaic technology attracted a lot of investment, reaching $133.5 billion.
Nevertheless, due to the suspension of subsidies in China, the world's largest photovoltaic market, and the decline in the cost of solar energy equipment, global renewable energy investment overall fell by 11% to 12%.
With the price of electricity going down, developers are more and more inclined to turn to competitive auction and enterprise power purchase agreement (PPA).
Facebook signed the biggest power purchase agreement in 2018, the 2.1GW solar energy deal.
