Renewables No Longer a Niche Market

Institutional investors remain eager to put money to work on renewable energy projects even as US President Donald Trump has vowed to revive their chief competitor: coal, financial executives said at a conference this week. “Five or six years ago, funds weren’t specifically targeting renewable investment; today it’s a key component of infrastructure investment,” said David Giordano, managing director of US-based investment management firm BlackRock on the sidelines of the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York. He said that renewable energy was no longer considered a niche market, CNBC reported. Strong interest in green energy comes as Trump is championing fossil fuels and targeting environmental regulations as job killers. Trump’s administration, however, has made no moves to target federal tax incentives for renewable energy projects, which have helped make the technologies more competitive with traditional fuels like coal and natural gas, thanks mainly to bipartisan support in congress. Major US corporations such as Wal-Mart Stores and General Motors have become some of America’s biggest buyers of renewable energy in recent years, according to industry figures.