Lawyer Monthly Magazine - October 2019 Edition

How Is Clean Energy Investment Performing? Despite current levels of investment being lower than in 2017, the USD 332.1B worth of clean energy investment in 2018 proves that the renewable energy industry is a force to be reckoned with, with Europe carving ahead with the largest increase in investment globally of 27% in 2017. Europe’s contributions to the global clean energy investment scene were characterised primarily through the financing of five offshore wind projects, each of which were multibillion-dollar projects. Offshore wind projects alone had attracted USD 25.7B of investment, a 14% increase from 2018. This is a reflection of steadily increasing focus on the offshore wind sector in recent years and driven, in part, by the increasing number of investment access points. This has enabled offshore wind projects to take-off efficiently and much quicker than equivalent solar projects. Whilst solar projects attracted USD 130.8B in investment, this figure was in fact 24% lower than the USD 172.1B seen in 2017. Multiple variables including changes to tariffs and, in the UK in particular, government schemes, are thought to have had an effect on this decline. Venture capital and private equity investment allow entry before project initiation. This type of investment amounted to USD 9.2B in 2018 – a 127% increase to that seen in 2017. The top venture capital deal executed in 2018, led by Softbank, was US-based View Inc’s USD 1.1B Series H. The variety of financial investment tools, such as asset financing and green bond options is likely to have a multiplier effect on the level of available funding for offshore wind projects and other renewable projects alike. In 2018 Amundi and IFC launched the largest green-bond investment vehicle to date. In June 2019, Glennmont Partners, a London-based investment firm with over EUR 1.3B of assets under management (AUM) is set to announce the largest renewable energy fund in Europe. The renewable energy industry took the stock market by storm back in 2006/7, with many renewable energy companies going through high profile IPOs capitalising around USD 1 Billion on the market. In less than two years, there were at least 160 publicly traded renewable energy companies that were generating greater than USD 100 million. This spike of interest into the sector wasn’t a temporary hype and with pressing concerns for mother Earth and the environment, we thought it would be interesting to see how the clean energy sector is doing. Are companies still interested in renewable energy? Should you be keeping an eye on solar energy and is it worth investing in? This article, written by Karun Harrar, touches on how the sector performed in 2018 and gives insights into how clean energy is being perceived in the M&A sphere. With this month’s main cover story touching on how we wish there would be more Greta Thunbergs in the corporate world to save the planet from climate change, we analytically observe how other industries are reacting to alternative solutions, with one of them being: renewable energy. 78 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | OCT 2019 Special Feature How Is Clean Energy Investment Performing?