Renewable Energy Market Watch

By Travis Williams

ABS Energy Research is a company that details market fluctuations within the green industry and provides statistics on specific technologies at the end of every year.

At the end of 2008, the global capacity of wind energy reached 121 GW which is mainly from five countries (in order from the most wind energy first): The US, Germany, Spain, China and India which contribute 73% of global wind energy. ABS forecasts that by the end of 2012, global capacity for wind energy could reach 230 GW, with China and the US leading the market.

Photovoltaic energy had an incredible year with 5.7 GW of solar energy installed (Spain and Germany account for 75% of these installations) in 2008 and 7.3 GW installed in 2009.

A recent market report by SolarBuzz found that The PV industry generated $38.5 billion in global revenues in 2009, while successfully raising over $13.5 billion in equity and debt, up 8% on the prior year. Moreover, the global photovoltaic market grew over 20% from 2008-2009 and is expected to grow more in 2010.

The US is currently third in the world with solar energy representing 7% of total solar energy installations.