PORTLAND, Ore. - Solar photovoltaic products, wind power, biofuels, and fuel cells collectively experienced a 40 percent growth in revenues in 2007, according to a new report from Clean Edge Inc. Global revenues for the four clean energy markets increased from $55 billion in 2006 to $77.3 billion in 2007. And although the fuel cell and distributed hydrogen market remains relatively immature, with revenues of $1.5 billion in 2007, the three other renewable markets each exceeded $20 billion in revenue. Of the four energy markets, wind power earned the highest revenue, at $30.1 billion. In terms of production, the biofuels industry produced 13 billion gallons of ethanol throughout the world, as well as 2 billion gallons of biodiesel, while solar photovoltaic system installations fell just short of 3,000 megawatts.

The Clean Energy Trends 2008 report looks ahead 10 years and predicts that global installed solar photovoltaic capacity will increase eightfold, to 22,760 megawatts, global wind power capacity will nearly quadruple, to 75,781 megawatts, and biofuel production will nearly triple, to 45.9 billion gallons. It also projects a tripling of the three clean energy markets over the next 10 years, with the largest growth rate in the fuel cell and distributed hydrogen market, which grows more than tenfold to $16 billion. But for biofuels, wind power, and solar photovoltaic products, the projection actually represents slower growth compared to recent years. For instance, the solar photovoltaic market increased fivefold in the past four years and is projected to increase by a factor of 3.6 over the next ten years. That’s a 13.8 percent average annual growth in the coming decade, compared to 50 percent average annual growth over the past four years.

Publication date: 03/31/2008