New Energy Finance, a provider of financial information to investors in clean energy, has published a report, entitled “Cleaning Up”, which looks at the growth in venture capital and private equity investment in the clean energy industry worldwide.
The report analyses $15 billion of transactions over the past five years, showing that total investment volume has more than doubled, from $2.8billion in 182 transactions in 2004, to $6.7 billion from 220 transactions in 2005.
Deal volume eased in the first five months of 2006 (exception the area of venture and technology investments) but New Energy Finance still expects the full-year deal volume for 2006 to exceed that for 2005. The report aims to identify the most dynamic sectors, countries and investment types. It also aims to identify issues that may hold back further growth, such as limited numbers of technology-driven deals, bottlenecks in the clean energy equipment supply industry and a shortage of entrepreneurs with energy industry experience.
The report also contains a forecast of future growth indenture capital and private equity finance in the clean energy sector. New Energy Finance expects the total deal value to grow from $6.9billion in 2006 to $22.3 billion. Total venture capital and private equity deal value between 2006 and 2012 will be just over $100 billion, with just under $64 billion of that expected to be equity.