A new report published by
market analysts Frost & Sullivan expects outlook for clean energy markets
to remain positive in 2017, in the face of global uncertainty. The report also
states that Asia will lead the economically driven expansion of clean and green
energy technologies.
Recent discussions on the
future of clean energy have been clouded by incoming U.S. President Trump’s
threats to pull the country out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Analysts at
Frost & Sullivan state that while this could create challenges for the
industry, substantial investments will continue to be driven by China and
India.
"We expect 2017 to be a
transition year for long term changes. With rising protectionism across the
world, the issue of energy security will once again come to the fore in Asia
Pacific,” says Ravi Krishnaswamy, Vice President Energy & Environment for
Asia Pacific at Frost Sullivan. "This will accelerate adoption of clean
technologies which can be harnessed locally and are less impacted by global
policy and price fluctuations.”
The report says that solar
PV will be at the forefront of around 18% growth in renewables across Asia and
the Pacific for 2017. Despite many countries planning to reduce feed in tariff
rates, growth will be driven by distributed energy – the Asia Pacific market is
expected to surpass US$18 billion this year.
Several government
initiatives are turning to renewables, combined with improvements and
automation of grids, and in many cases the establishment of micro grids to
improve access to energy.
2017 will also be a turning
point for storage in the region, say Frost & Sullivan. China has made
storage a key part of its 13th five year plan, with
the world’s
largest microgrid PV plant featuring storage
connected back in October. Innovative storage
applications are also popping up in other parts of the continent, AES and
Mitsubishi announced
the first
utility scale storage project in India
just last week.
*Mark Hutchins is an editor at PV magazine
(www.pv-magazine.com,
January 20, 2017)