According to analysts at Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group, the renewable-energy genie has been let out of the bottle and there is no way to put it back; not even cheap oil can derail renewables. Spending on renewable energy has been surging for the past decade and 2014 wasn’t any different, with an increase of 16%, to $310 billion, up from $268 billion in 2013.
Analysts believe spending on renewable energy will continue to increase and remain unaffected by lower oil prices. In fact, only 1% of the U.S. economy’s electricity comes from oil, much too small a number to shift resources away from renewables. Goldman Sachs managed $4.1 billion in clean-energy public market transactions in 2014.
Low Oil Prices Have Positive Effects Elsewhere
Deutsche Bank’s analysts believe that slumping renewable energy stock prices are a good buying opportunity.
As far as countries like Saudi Arabia go, the current slump in oil prices has led to active development projects of the Kingdom’s rich geothermal resources which are a clean, stable, and indigenous supply of energy and have been on the drawing board for some time.
Countries around the world have seen the writing on the wall and have ambitious targets for increased proportions of renewable resources as part of their energy mix in coming decades. Sweden’s government, for example, has set a target for 50% renewable energy by 2020 with similar plans across much of the EU, Asia, and North and South America.
Finally, the recent shale gas boom is causing many countries to use this resource as part of energy planning as they move toward renewables. Natural gas is seen as a way of balancing intermittent solar and wind generation sources.
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