Renewable

(ADPnews) - Jan 12, 2010 - The renewable energy industry in the Asia Pacific region has a strong potential for growth in 2010 feeding on financial incentives introduced by the government in 2009, market research firm Frost & Sullivan said yesterday.

In a bid to speed up the development and usage of the alternative energy, several governments of the region last year introduced policies that include mandatory renewable energy targets, tax credits, grants and investment incentives as well as higher feed-in-tariffs, Frost & Sullivan's Asia Pacific Industry Analyst of Energy & Power Systems Practice, Suchitra Sriram said.

Nevertheless, Asia Pacific would be able to reveal its full potential for the green energy if the stimulus addresses not only the adoption for green energy technologies but also R&D investment and manufacturing capacity.

According to Sriram, renewable energy is likely to be successfully adopted in Malaysia and South Korea this year, where the grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems are set to grow encouraged by the feed-in-tariffs and tax incentives respectively. The Philippines will also keep pace with its recently passed Renewable Energy and Biofuels Act.

The analyst notes that countries, such as Japan, offering zero-interest loans to renewables-focused companies, plan to derive 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, while Australia may boost the clean electricity output to 12,500 GWh in 2010 from the existing 9,500 GWh.

Meanwhile other countries are also to welcome the renewable energy adoption strategies. These include -- Indonesia with the government's flagship geothermal power projects, Taiwan, accepting the passage of the so-called Renewable Energy Development Act, and Thailand with the National Plan aiming to increase the installed PV capacity to 550 MW by 2022 from the 36 MW in 2008.

In addition, the growth opportunities in the wind and solar sectors are likely to attract new entrants, such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), supplying components as well as companies that undertake system integration and installation, the analyst said.