India continued its ascent as a top destination for private clean energy investment, according to a research report released by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-profit organisation.

The country’s ‘National Solar Mission,’ with a goal to have 20 GW of solar power installed by 2020, helped drive the seven-fold jump in solar energy investments to $4.2 billion, the report said. India received $4.6 billion and an additional 2.8 GW of capacity was installed over the course of the year. India now has 22.4 gigawatts of installed clean energy generating capacity.

According to the report, India’s clean energy sector continued to flourish in 2011, with private investment increasing 54 per cent to $10.2 billion, placing the country at sixth position among the G-20 nations. This was the second highest growth rate among the G-20 nations.

“Clean energy investment, excluding research and development, has grown by 600 per cent since 2004 on the basis of effective national policies that create market certainty,” said Ms Phyllis Cuttino, Director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program.

“On a number of measures, India has been one of the top performing clean energy economies in the 21{+s}{+t} century, registering the fifth highest five-year rate of investment growth and eighth highest in installed renewable energy capacity,” the report said.

Globally, investment grew to a record $263 billion in 2011, a 6.5 per cent increase over the previous year. The US reclaimed the top spot among all G-20 nations and attracted $48 billion.

However, with $45.5 billion in private investments, China continued to be a hub of clean energy activity — leading the world in wind energy investment and deployment as well as wind and solar manufacturing.

Germany received $30.6 billion, ranking third among G-20 nations. The combination of falling prices and growing investments accelerated installation of clean energy generating capacity by a record 83.5 GW in 2011 bringing the total to 565 GW globally. This represents almost 50 per cent more than installed nuclear power capacity.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance is Pew’s research partner.

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