Energy investment in India jumped 7%, cementing its position as the third-largest country behind China and the United States, owing to a strong government push to modernise and expand India’s power system and enhance access to electricity supply said International Energy Agency’s (IEA) report. The rapidly growing economies of Southeast Asia together represent over 4% of global energy investment.
“Investment in India’s electricity sector reached a record of nearly $55bn in 2016,” World Energy Investment report 2017 stated.
On the other hand, China remained the largest destination of energy investment, taking 21% of the global total
However, the makeup of investments in China has been changing.
“Today, energy investment in China is increasingly driven by low-carbon electricity supply and networks, and energy efficiency,” the report said.
Overall, total energy investment worldwide was around USD 1.7 trillion in 2016, 12% lower than 2015 in real terms and accounting for 2.2% of global gross domestic product (GDP).
The report further stated that spending on electricity networks and storage continued its steady rise of the past five years, reaching an all-time high of $277 billion in 2016. China accounted for 30% of networks spending, driven by distribution networks and a significant expansion of large-scale transmission. Another 13% went to India and Southeast Asia, where the grid is expanding rapidly to accommodate growing demand. In the United States (17% of the total) and Europe (15%), a growing share is going to replacement of ageing transmission and distribution assets.
Overall, the grid is modernising and moving from a pure electricity delivery business to an integrated platform for data and services, enabled by rapid progress in digital information and communications technologies, which grew to over 10% of networks spending. Investment in grid-scale battery-based energy storage is ramping up quickly, reaching over $1 billion in 2016.