Clean Edge Reports Promising Clean-Tech Trends for 2010

In an attempt to assuage global economic concerns, Clean Edge Inc.'s latest report points out promising trends in the clean edge industry for 2010.

The 22 page report from the research and publishing firm, aptly titled Clean Energy Trends 2010 (pdf), focuses on "signs of hope" emerging from the clean-tech sector--namely that although venture activity was down in 2009, clean energy’s percent of the total continued to increase--to 12.5 percent of total venture activity in 2009 in the U.S. alone.

Some of the Report's Major Findings:

• Biofuels (global production and wholesale pricing of ethanol and biodiesel) reached $44.9 billion in 2009 and are projected to grow to $112.5 billion by 2019. In 2009 the biofuels market consisted of more than 23.6 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel production worldwide.
• Wind power (new installation capital costs) is projected to expand from $63.5 billion in 2009 to $114.5 billion in 2019. Last year’s global wind power installations reached a record 37,500 MW. China, the global leader in new installations for the first time, accounted for more than a third of new installations, or 13,000 MW.
• Solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) will grow from a $30.7 billion industry in 2009 to $98.9 billion by 2019. New installations reached just less than 6 GW worldwide in 2009, a nearly sixfold increase from five years earlier, when the solar PV market reached the gigawatt milestone for the first time. But because of rapidly declining solar PV prices, industry revenue between 2008 and 2009 was down about 20 percent – from a revised $38.5 billion in 2008 – as solar prices dropped from an average $7 peak watt installed in 2008 to $5.12 peak watt installed last year.

Clean Edge predicts these three benchmark technologies, which totaled $124.8 billion in 2008 and grew 11 percent to $139.1 billion in 2009, to grow to $325.9 billion within a decade.

Download the full Clean Edge Report Here