Many countries including the US, EU, China and South Korea have put together packages for investing in renewable energy sectors during this downturn.

The EU and US have committed almost 1% of their output to sustainable recovery programmes. China is racing ahead, putting over a third of its big stimulus package into green investments. South Korea is investing two-thirds of its package into energy efficiency, green jobs, public transport and renewable energy. India, facing elections, has political parties? manifestos promising to increase power production with about 20% from renewables, both for energy and employment security.

The EU and US had allotted millions of dollars and euros to this sector even before the recently concluded London summit, where a $1.1 trillion package was announced. Now, all proposed stimulus spending by 2010 stands at about $5 trillion. Substantial amounts of this would go to the renewable energy sector. The prime mover of the recovery through renewables was the United Nations Environment Programme, which recommended that one-third of the planned stimulus packages worldwide should be used to ?green? the world economy, ?as this would help power the global economy out of recession?.

Barack Obama?s $787 billion economic stimulus plan included $7 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects, $13 billion to tax credits for renewable energy production, $11 billion for modernising the power grid, $1.25 billion for research and development in renewables and $500 million for workforce training in renewable and energy efficiency careers. In all, there?s about $150 billion for creating 5 million jobs.

The EU economic recovery plan has set aside 3,900 million euros for energy projects, including over 890 million euros for key strategic interconnections in the power grid and 565 million euros for offshore wind projects. The European wind Energy Association leaders have asserted that wind power investments carry more economic certainty than other energy investments.

Investors are now more inclined to investments in clean energy than they were a year ago.

?joseph.vackayil@expressindia.com