Finance:

Clean Energy Investment Jumps 16%, Shaking Off Oil’s Drop (Bloomberg New Energy Finance)

Geothermal attracted $2.7bn, up 23% on 2013

Clean energy investment rose for the first time in three years in 2014, overcoming a slump in oil prices that unsettled the outlook for the industry.

New funds for wind, solar, biofuels and other low-carbon energy technologies gained 16 percent to $310 billion last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It was the first growth since 2011, erasing the impact of lower solar-panel prices and falling subsides in the U.S. and Europe that hurt the industry in previous years.

Reflecting a shift away from large, centralized power stations to smaller, local facilities, investment in so-called distributed power swelled 34 percent to $73.5 billion. That will weigh on utilities that are under pressure to replace fossil-fuel or nuclear power stations with more intermittent and smaller low-carbon facilities.

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