Global wind energy projects' funding worth $32 bn in 2014

Global wind energy sector garnered funds worth nearly USD 32 billion last year, with major chunk coming from project-funding deals, says a report.
Out of the total amount, around USD 20 billion came from project funding activities spread across 120 deals.
"Total funding into the wind sector reached USD 31.7 billion in 2014 including VC funding, public market financings, debt financings, and announced project funding deals," Mercom Capital Group, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm, said in its report today.
In 2014, announced large-scale project funding were worth USD 20 billion spread across 120 deals. There were a total of 139 investors that participated in project funding last year, the report said.

"The most active project funding investors were KfW IPEX-Bank with nine deals, followed by Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) with eight deals, and Banco Santander, Bayerische Landesbank New York Branch (BayernLB), and Eksport Kredit Fonden (EKF) with seven deals each," it added.
While debt financing amounted to USD 7.7 billion in 2014, public market financing stood at USD 3.7 billion during the same period.

Venture capital funding into the wind sector stood at USD 311 million last year.
"There has been a significant jump in the number of yieldcos entering the renewable energy space, and for yieldcos to grow they must continually add new projects to their portfolio.

"We will see a lot more yieldcos jumping into the Wind sector in the near future and start actively acquiring quality wind projects worldwide," Mercom Capital Group CEO and Co-Founder Raj Prabhu said.
Generally, yieldcos are entities that are formed to own operating assets that have good cash flows and are mostly listed.
As per Mercom, it was a strong year (2014) for merger and acquisition activities in the wind sector with 28 deals and 12 of them were disclosed for a combined USD 4.6 billion.
Amid increasing push for environment-friendly power generation in different parts of the world, including India, wind sector is considered as a major source of clean energy.