Investments in solar drop over 30%, while wind rises

Wind has seen three straight years of investment growth, with the largest startups coming from India

When it comes to renewable energy sources, so far the biggest bet, from venture capitalists and the rest of the tech world, has been made in solar. Danny Kennedy, the co-founder and President of solar company Sungevity called it the backbone of technology. Last year, Google created a $75 million fund, through which the company will buy and own solar-panel generators on the roofs of several thousand U.S. homes. There is a lot of faith that solar will be the energy source of the future.

There's another energy source, though, that is rising fast, could actually wind up competing with solar for those venture dollars.

While investment dollars on wind energy companies went up last, solar saw its numbers decline severely, according to data out from CB Insights on Monday. 

In 2015, investments in wind energy reached $722 million, up 5.5 percent from the $684 million invested in 2014. Solar, meanwhile, saw its funding drop a pretty astounding 33.3 percent in the same time period, going from $1.8 billion to $1.2 billion 

That growth in wind energy is significant, as it is actually the third year in a row that dollars into companies in the space went up; they also grew by 85 percent in 2014 and over 419 percent in 2013. While it's true that growth is slowing significantly, investments in the sector are still up tenfold from what they were in 2012. Solar, meanwhile, has only seen its investment dollars increase by 20 percent in the same time period.

Investments in solar have been kind of all over the place ever since the very public collapse of Solyndra in 2011, and it has now seen funding dip in two out of the last three years, having dropped more than 50 percent in 2013 as well.

While the number of dollars increased in wind last year, the same cannot be said for the number of deals, which saw a decline of 58 percent, going from 31 in 2014 to 13 in 2015. With significantly fewer deals, but many more dollars, that means a much larger average deal size, which rose from $2.7 million to $55.5 million in one year.

Solar, meanwhile, also saw a decrease in the number of deals, though not quite as dramatic. They went from 80 in 2014 to 63 in 2015, a drop of 21.25 percent. The average deal size in solar last year was $19 million.

Here's something really interesting about the wind energy space: it seems like India has taken the lead, with the top three rounds all made in startups from that country. They were: ReNew Power Ventures, based in Gurgaon, which raised a $265 million private equity round; Ostro Energy, which raised a $230 million private equity round; and Welspun Renewables Energy, based in New Dehli, which raised $165 million.

Some of the top investments made in the solar energy space last year included Sunnova Energy, whichraised $300 million; Silicon Ranch Corporation, which raised $140 in a private equity round;  Silicor Materials, which raised $105 million; Sunlight Financial, which raised $80 million, and Conergy, which raised $45 million.

(Image source: wcmu.org)