USA Is #1 In The World For Renewable Energy Investment Attractiveness

May 27th, 2020 by 

I know — this will blow the mind of many people who follow US politics closely. But that’s just a reminder that political chaos isn’t everything.

The United States has apparently regained #1 in EY’s Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI), a biannual report that has been put out since 2003.

We’ve been covering this index for years, and China and the USA are almost always on top. Well, one of them have been #1 for several years, and the other is normally #2. India split them up just for a couple of reports in 2017, holding the #2 spot for several months while China was #1 and the USA #3. China was actually holding onto the #1 spot since May of 2017 until this month, when the USA finally became #1 again. (There’s a nifty little timeline animation at the link above, screenshot below.)

Image courtesy EY

As you may have guessed by now, the index is based on total scale, not a relative ranking. The top 20 ranking goes as follows:

  1. USA (#2 in previous report)
  2. China (#1 in previous report)
  3. France (#4 in previous report)
  4. Australia (#5 in previous report)
  5. Germany (#6 in previous report)
  6. UK (#8 in previous report)
  7. India (#3 in previous report)
  8. Denmark (#9 in previous report)
  9. Netherlands (#10 in previous report)
  10. Japan (#8 in previous report)
  11. Spain (#15 in previous report)
  12. Ireland (#18 in previous report)
  13. Chile (#13 in previous report)
  14. Israel (#22 in previous report)
  15. Canada (#16 in previous report)
  16. Brazil (#19 in previous report)
  17. South Korea (#20 in previous report)
  18. Argentina (#11 in previous report)
  19. Italy (#17 in previous report)
  20. Belgium (#26 in previous report)


This 55th edition of the report focused quite a bit on the coronavirus pandemic, understandably, but assumed that matter will mostly have short-term effects on the industry. “The investors involved remain confident about the long-term picture for clean energy. Climate change isn’t going away. The need, after the pandemic, to ensure greater economic and social resilience will work in favor of distributed power sources, such as wind and solar, and the applications offered by battery storage. Large companies will be keen to demonstrate that they are responsible corporate citizens, encouraging them to source clean energy.”

China dropped to #2 in the ranking due in large part to the country’s reduction of renewable energy subsidies. Interestingly, despite it being #1, EY didn’t write about USA’s renewable energy investment landscape, seeming to imply a more or less “business as usual” scenario — outside of the Covid-19 pandemic.

EY also wrote a bit about the markets in Greece, Chile, Finland, Japan, Ireland, France, and Italy. Feel free to dive in for more perspective and details regarding these markets.

I’ll just highlight one country before closing out, Ireland. It jumped from #18 in the last report to #12 in this one. That was driven in large part by a new 2030 goal of 70% electricity from renewable resources. It had 33% of electricity coming from renewables in 2018. The middle of this year kicks of some auctions aimed at getting the country rolling toward that target. EY also highlighted strong interest in offshore wind power for the Emerald Isle.

Top photo by Cynthia Shahan/CleanTechnica