A SNIPPET of research notes from BloombergNEF forecasts how the Corona virus could affect the clean energy market.
The influential analyst released fresh projections looking at the likely effects of Covid-19, which was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation this week, on markets for renewable electricity, electric vehicles, heating, cooling, and the circular economy.
The company voices their concern regarding the demand, as policymakers may look past clean energy to more immediate concerns.
The bottleneck created by shutdowns of Chinese factories highlights to them the need for more local battery manufacturing.
There has also been a profound effect on electric vehicle sales in China year on year when examining the data so far, with a -44% change.
This could end up dampening down the overall expectation for sales of electric vehicles throughout the world.
BloombergNEF had previously expected solar demand to reach around 121-152GW in 2020, it has now downgraded its forecast to between 108-143GW.
This is a -8% drop in their estimation since Covid-19 went pandemic.
This could make 2020 the first down year for solar capacity addition since ‘at least’ the 1980s.
The only exception is wind and 2020 can still be expected to be a record year for wind build due to tighter delivery and build schedules and specialised equipment often being rented for a more limited time.
This is despite there being a downgrade risk to global wind forecast of 75.4GW.
Hygiene concerns have also increased the usage of single-use thin films of low density polyethylene and other plastic packaging, undoing some of the early progress made by companies towards a circular economy.
