Nathaniel Bullard, Columnist

Want More Bang for Your Buck? Go Solar

Wind power’s return on investment might not be as thrilling, but investors in clean energy should be very excited about the two technologies.

January 18, 2019 at 5:49 PM UTC

By Nathaniel Bullard

Nat Bullard is a senior contributor to BloombergNEF and writes the Sparklines column for Bloomberg Green. He advises early-stage climate technology companies and climate investors.

Suitors Chase EDP-Energias de Portugal SA's $8.5 Billion Renewables Unit — Photographer: Daniel Rodrigues/Bloomberg

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For the fifth year in a row, global investment in clean energy topped $300 billion, according to Bloomberg NEF. 2018’s financing for new power-generation projects, research and development, and public-markets activity was up fivefold from 15 years ago, when Germany introduced its first major subsidy and policy supports for clean energy.

That’s still progress, but if such investment over the past five years was essentially unchanged, is it good news for efforts to decarbonize the electricity sector?