2011 has been a hard year for clean energy fund managers so far, and there are few signs of improvement any time soon. Investors are shunning the sector in the face of industry-specific issues such as overcapacity and shifts in demand, and they are mindful too of the steadily deteriorating macro-economic outlook.

In the fourth quarter of 2007 the clean energy sector saw a sharp increase in the use of private equity expansion capital, but investment in buyouts evaporated in the face of the credit crisis. Venture capital investment, meanwhile, maintained the high levels seen in the previous two quarters.