The impressive growth in clean energy investments in recent years has been led by renewable power. Annual spending on solar PV and wind projects has risen by more than USD 300 billion in the last five years, and now accounts for one-third of the total USD 1.8 trillion that we expect to go to clean energy investments in 2023. Deployment has been driven by a virtuous circle of policy support and cost reductions. The global energy crisis, coupled with acute concern over emissions and competition among countries for positions in the clean energy economy, has redoubled policy momentum in recent years.
Through the 2010s, renewable investors and governments designing policies became used to two supportive trends: relatively cheap capital in an era of low interest rates, and steadily falling costs. However, this context changed as the world emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic into the global energy crisis.
An environment of higher interest rates (outside China) means financing becomes more expensive, with multiple effects for renewables. Projects become harder to finance; companies' profitability is affected as they need to increase their reliance on more expensive equity; and very leveraged companies have a higher risk of default. Clean energy investments are more vulnerable to a rise in borrowing costs than other types of energy investments, as they typically involve relatively high upfront costs that are compensated over time by much lower operating expenses.
High borrowing costs exacerbate challenges facing renewable project developers in many emerging and developing economies, where the cost of capital is already two or three times higher than in advanced economies and China. According to the latest survey data from the IEA's Cost of Capital Observatory, nine out of ten respondents expect increases in the cost of capital in emerging and developing economies in 2023.
In addition, the extended run of cost declines for key clean energy technologies has been interrupted by volatile commodity prices and supply chain constraints. The IEA's Clean Energy Equipment Price Index tracks prices for a basket of solar PV modules, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries. There was a noticeable uptick in prices that started towards the end of 2020 and which remains visible for many clean technologies with the exception of solar PV.
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