In this joint report by the International Energy Agency and the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment we shed light on the long-term prospects for clean energy, as we investigate the historical financial performance of energy companies around the world in search of broad structural trends.
This is the second in a series of joint reports by the International Energy Agency and Imperial College Business School examining the risk and return proposition in energy transitions. In this paper, we extend our coverage of publicly-traded renewable power and fossil fuel companies to the following: 1) global markets, 2) advanced economies, 3) emerging market and developing economies, and 4) China. We calculate the total return and annualized volatility of these portfolios over 5 and 10-year periods.
Across all portfolios, renewable power generated higher total returns relative to fossil fuel. Annualized volatility (a measure of investment risk) for the renewable power was lower than fossil fuel in the global and advanced economies portfolios, but higher in the China and emerging market and developing economies portfolios.
Research Launch Event
24 March - Research presentation by the authors and industry panel discussion