Recently, 35,000 solar professionals from the solar and finance communities were invited to take part in asurvey to assess industry confidence for 2012 in the US.
A recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance demonstrated that, in spite of plunging stock prices, investment in utility scale renewable energy was higher in Q3 than in any other quarter and up by 16% compared to this time last year. The second shock of the report was that it was the US cleantech sector taking the lead in terms of investment, overtaking the usual front runners Europe and China.
This seemingly positive news is however tainted with some worries from investors and the cleantech sector. Some believe Solyndra’s high profile collapse will affect government support of renewable incentives, whilst others expect the expiry of the Treasury cash grant at the end of the year to dampen the development of utility scale projects.
Building upon Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s findings, Green Power Conferencesand the Solar Power Generation USA congress invited over 35,000 professionals from the solar and finance communities to take part in a 5 minute survey to assess industry confidence for 2012.
Despite expected difficulties in the market, over 60% of respondents thought that investment in the utility scale solar sector would increase in 2012, whilst 20% thought it would stay the same as 2011 levels.
The proposed expiry of the 1603 Treasury Cash Grant, however, created more of a divide between you. Just over a third of respondents thought this would significantly affect large scale solar project development in 2012, whilst 40% thought there would still be enough tax equity finance for good projects.
To read the full report findings for free visit the website http://bit.ly/uaL63v