Renewables sector stays upbeat but clouds gather over global energy

Clean energy groups in the Americas are upbeat about their growth prospects, even at a time when the US is rowing back on a swath of climate commitments and redoubling support for its domestic oil and gas industry.

Consumer demand, abundant natural resources and price competitiveness will help keep the market buoyant, especially south of the US border, say analysts.

Favourable regulation, coupled with tax incentives and a decline in the cost of renewable technologies, has helped accelerate the sector in recent years across the Americas.

In the US, the generating capacity of wind and solar energy has more than tripled over the past decade, making the two zero-emission resources the country’s fastest-growing source of electricity.

Feeding this momentum is a pipeline of large-scale projects in the region that offers a buffer against any abrupt slowdown in US investment, says Paulo Morais, executive director at Peers, a Brazilian consultancy operating in several fast-growth sectors, including renewables.

At the heart of the industry’s confidence is a conviction that the basic economics of renewable energy now compete toe-to-toe with conventional fuels, making technologies such as wind and solar attractive to consumers regardless of their political persuasion.

“There is a lot of optimism,” says Morais. “Solar energy, in particular, continues to grow, driven by the adoption of residential and business consumers seeking to reduce electricity costs.”

Solar Landscape is one of those riding this rebalancing in renewable energy’s economic fundamentals. The New Jersey-based group has expanded over the past five years to meet demand for leasing commercial and industrial rooftops for small-scale solar generation projects.

“At first, not everyone who is in the space saw the opportunity as emphatically as we did, [but] we’ve now grown into the biggest at commercial rooftop solar in the country,” says chief executive Shaun Keegan.

The group, set up in 2012 as a contractor to install photovoltaic panels for newly built US homes, generated a compound annual growth rate of 28.4 per cent during the period assessed. Revenue more than doubled to $100mn, from three years earlier.

Demand has been helped by the reduction in the cost of commercial PV systems, which are now less than a third of the price than in 2010.

Yet, Keegan credits a shift in regulations in multiple states for rapidly accelerating his business, which now focuses exclusively on commercial properties. Under new rules, electricity generated from leased rooftops can be sold directly to the grid, rather than being restricted to use by the building’s occupant.

Elsewhere, in Europe, solar energy groups have also benefited from the rapid adoption of renewables.

Menlo Electric, a Polish supplier of photovoltaic panels, topped the 2025 FT ranking of the fastest-growing companies in Europe.

In Colombia, a long-standing law exempts renewable energy equipment and services from VAT. The country’s clean energy capacity is projected to increase 36 per cent this year, thanks to a collective investment of about $500mn in 19 new projects. Nearly half of the 610MW in additional clean-power capacity is set to come from two large-scale solar plants in the municipalities of Guaduas y Paratebueno, located close to the capital Bogotá.

The price-competitiveness of solar makes clean power “increasingly more accessible” for consumers, says Catalina Palacios, general manager of Colombia-based PV distributor Grupo Solaire. During its decade or so in the PV market, the group’s sales have roughly doubled year on year. It employs 60 people and has expanded into Central America and neighbouring Ecuador.

Another factor at play relates to energy security, Palacios adds. Poor national infrastructure in smaller markets such as the Caribbean, has long made power cuts a problem. Even in countries with stronger grids, however, the prospect of energy imports being disrupted is raising concerns about security.

Given their reliance on homegrown resources such as wind, solar and hydropower, renewables are quick to position themselves as a defence against the vicissitudes of global energy markets.

“None of these wider disruptions affect people when they are using solar PVs,” says Palacios. “Generating electricity on site just offers more confidence all round.”

Even countries with large domestic fossil fuel reserves, such as Mexico, Canada, Argentina and Brazil, still rely to an extent on imports for power generation.

Price of solar makes clean energy more accessible

Almost half of Mexico’s energy mix comes from natural gas, for instance, over two-thirds of which has been met by imports from the US in recent years.

The appeal of renewables as a source of cheap, clean and secure electricity is growing among businesses, which use long-term purchase agreements to lock in green power.

In Mexico and the US, 70 per cent of business leaders say they would rather their governments prioritise renewables over fossil fuels when investing in new power generation, according to a survey of business leaders in 15 countries published by polling company Savanta this month.

In Latin America, access to clean electricity is a significant issue in decision-making, with more than nine in 10 executives in Mexico and Brazil saying they prioritise the issue when determining where to locate their operations and supply chains, the poll found.

Brazil generates about three-fifths of its electricity from hydropower, while Enel in 2023 added 900 megawatts of wind and solar capacity there, with an additional 1,153MW under construction.

The Italian energy group’s 2024-2026 strategy projects total capital expenditure in Brazil at $3.7bn, a 45 per cent increase compared with its previous plan.

“The cycle of investment in infrastructure projects in [renewable] generation that began in recent years is still far from reaching its exhaustion point,” Morais says. The exception are those clean energy companies that export renewable energy directly to the US, as is the case with many in green hydrogen and second-generation ethanol.

Still, domestic demand is expected to help. In Brazil, for instance, the home market for biofuel, which is used for car transportation, generates returns of more than $15bn a year. With projected growth rates of at least 9 per cent over the next decade, a company such as biodiesel manufacturer Binatural has a ready market for the 600mn litres that it produces from its two major facilities in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Goiás.

Fast-developing technologies such as battery storage promise to create more opportunities. West Engineering, for instance, a Bogotá-based service provider specialising in automation, is in early-stage negotiations with a German electrolyser specialist about introducing new-generation hydrogen energy to Colombia.

In Colombia “there is a lot of push to implement new projects around hydrogen and renewables”, says Juan Hoyos, a process engineer at West Engineering.

In the US, however, new solar installations could slow by up to 25 per cent in coming years should government incentives be phased out early, according to a “low case” scenario recently published by the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Even so, Abigail Ross Hopper, the industry body’s chief executive, remains optimistic. “President Trump has specifically said that he loves solar,” she says. “The solar industry grew by 128 per cent during [his] first term and will continue to grow over the next four years.”