Clean Edge: Global Biofuels Market to Grow 3.3x to $52.5 Billion by 2015
07 March 2006
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Markets for biofuels, photovoltaics, wind energy, and fuel cells will expand four-fold in the next decade, growing from $40 billion in global revenues in 2005 to $167 billion by 2015, according to a report released today by Clean Edge, a research and publishing firm.
Clean Edge has issued the annual Clean Energy Trends report since 2002; this edition tracks the biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) market for the first time. Clean Edge reports the biofuels market hit $15.7 billion globally in 2005 and projects it to grow to $52.5 billion by 2015.
Up more than 15% in 2005 from 2004, biofuels exceeded wind or solar in 2005 global revenues. Clean Edge projects that markets for solar photovoltaics (modules, system components, and installations) will grow from $11.2 billion in 2005 to $51.1 billion by 2015; wind power installations will expand from $11.8 billion last year to $48.5 billion in 2015; and fuel cells and distributed hydrogen will grow from $1.2 billion in 2005 to $15.1 billion by 2015.
The report examines five key trends influencing clean-energy market growth:
- Clean Energy Becomes a US Security Issue;
- Flex Fuels Gain Power and Speed;
- Renewables Cross a Tipping Point;
- Innovation Stretches Silicon for Solar; and
- China and India Loom Large
Clean Edge, in collaboration with Nth Power, a leading energy-tech venture firm, also released Nth Power’s annual energy-tech venture data as part of the report. In 2005, Venture capital (VC) investors poured $917 million—an increase of approximately 28% from 2004—into more than 80 private companies.
These investments, primarily in distributed energy, energy intelligence, power reliability, advanced materials and nanotechnology and related services, represented more than 4% of the $21.7 billion US venture capital market, up from 3.3% in 2004.
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I think their projections for 2015 are much too small. We are near a Model T threshold in PV manufacturing technology.
Posted by: tom deplume | 08 March 2006 at 08:19 AM
Interesting! Biofuels 2005 already exceed both wind and solar. I expect that trend to continue, for the following reasons:
1. There are many and diverse feedstocks that remain untapped, such as waste paper (~40% of landfill waste in the US is paper).
2. Biofuels can be stored conveniently to be used whenever it is required (unlike either wind or solar).
3. By developing biofuels out of waste materials (second generation biofuels as the EU calls it) some of the production cost can be offset by charging a disposal fee for taking the feedstock off peoples hands.
Hydrogen/Fuel cell to grow by >1,000%? RIGHT!
Posted by: An Engineer | 08 March 2006 at 11:22 AM