In Ernst & Young’s (EY) latest renewable energy country attractiveness indices, while the rankings at the top of the all renewables index remain unchanged, all five of the top countries have lost points.
EY says China’s wind sector is continuing to experience problems with access to the nation’s mains grid. In the USA, a boom-bust situation is occurring again due to uncertainty surrounding various stimulus initiatives. More solar feed in tariff cuts and grid access issues have impacted Germany, an important tax break is putting a dampener on wind sector growth in India and further cuts to preferential rates awarded to renewable projects in Italy has been putting the brakes on investment there.
The company says investment in clean energy gloally in the first quarter of this year was the weakest since the worst of the global financial crisis three years ago and was affected by other issues such as the Eurozone debt crisis, decreasing carbon prices and a shale gas boom in the USA.
EY’s latest report isn’t entirely gloomy though – standout countries striking a positive blow in recent times include Mexico, Chile, Austria and Poland. Japan’s ranking improved following rapid recovery from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and news of favorable feed-in tariff levels.
An interesting point to emerge in the latest report – at German system prices; householders in Denmark, Italy, Spain, Hawaii and parts of Australia can generate over 6% real internal rate of return (IRR) investing in solar systems, provided they consume every kWh generated.
EY says this is technically grid parity at the residential level, or “socket parity,” and it is “happening not tomorrow, but today.”
In EY’s All renewables index, Australia sits at no. 11, down one spot. In the wind indices, Australia remains at no. 15. and is also stable at no. 8 in the solar power indices.
The full May 2012 Renewable energy country attractiveness indices report can be viewed here (PDF)
