According to the latest figures, renewable energy capacity investment has had a surge despite the global pandemic.

BloombergNEF (BNEF) data has shown that show that offshore wind had by far its busiest half year ever for final investment decisions, and this more than offset declines in investment in solar, onshore wind and biomass.

Offshore wind financings in the first half of 2020 totalled $35bn, over three times the same period last year, and year-on-year and indeed over the total for the whole of 2019.

The first half of this year saw investment decisions made on 28 sea-based wind farms, including the largest ever, the 1.5GW Vattenfall Hollandse Zuid array off the coast of the Netherlands, and the 1.1GW SSE Seagreen project off the UK.

Albert Cheung, head of analysis at BNEF, commented: “We expected to see COVID-19 affecting renewable energy investment in the first half, via delays in the financing process and to some auction programmes. There are signs of that in both solar and onshore wind, but the overall global figure has proved amazingly resilient – thanks to offshore wind.”

Overall investment in new renewable energy capacity (excluding large hydro-electric dams of more than 50MW) was $132.4bn in the first half of 2020, up 5 per cent from a revised $125.8bn in the same period of 2019. Onshore wind investment slipped 21 per cent while solar fell 12 per cent.

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