Barriers and Enablers to Renewable Energy Financing and Investment for Grid-connected Wind and Solar

Wind and solar are undergoing a global revolution with rapidly increasing installations driven by a range of technical, economic, regulatory, and institutional drivers. Recent work under the USAID, US-APEC Technical Assistance to Advance Regional Integration (US-ATAARI) project, found that countries throughout Asia are setting ambitious clean energy targets but for many countries, progress towards those targets is not keeping up. This presentation discussed the work which found four key drivers for attracting clean energy investment: technical (e.g., grid integration), economic (e.g., feed-in-tariffs), regulatory (e.g., support for IPPs), and institutional (e.g., local financing). The presentation also dwelled on how for some countries these drivers can enable clean energy investments whereas in other countries these drivers can be barriers to clean energy investments. The presentation also covered examples of successful investments resulting from enabling policies for several countries examined in the work: Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and Mongolia.