Clean energy is still more promise than reality, but investors can’t get enough: more than $117 billion flowed into the sector last year, according to a new report from alternative energy gurus New Energy Finance.“Investors’ enthusiasm still outstrips the industry’s current contribution to solving the world’s environmental and energy security problems,” said NEF chief executive Michael Liebreich in a statement. “The wave of liquidity washing through the sector shows no signs of abating,” he added.
According to the London-based research house, clean energy investment jumped 35% from $86.5 billion last year, with the lion’s share–$54.5 billion—going to asset investment, that is, to actual clean-energy projects. Half of that went to wind power, the most mature and cost-competitive of alternative energies. The biggest magnet? Asia and Oceania, which sucked in $8.4 billion, topping the $6.6 billion in wind-power deals in the Americas....MORE
Elsewhere in the WSJ's blog empire, David Gaffen had this premarket note at MarketBeat:
Shares of Akeena Solar gained 45%, according to Archipelago, after the company, a designer and installer of solar power systems, said that solar-panel technology called Andalay will be distributed in Europe, Japan and Australia under a license agreement with Suntech Power Holdings Co. Other solar shares were benefiting from the news, including LDK Solar, which rose 9.1% in premarket action.
