By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE, May 27 (Reuters) - Renewable energy investment inthe Asia-Pacific region will overtake spending on oil and gasexploration by 2020, consultancy Rystad Energy said on Monday.
Total capital expenditure in renewables will rise above $30billion in the region by 2020, just overtaking investment intoexploration and production for oil and natural gas, theconsultancy said.
India, Australia, Japan, Vietnam and South Korea will be theleading destinations for investment in Asia, according toRystad.
The company focuses on China separately and did not includethe nation in this assessment. China is the world's biggestinvestor into renewables and also one of the leading spenders inupstream oil and gas.
Investment into renewables is being supported by governmentpolicies such as solar and wind feed-in-tariffs across theregion.
"Importantly, most (countries) have large targets outliningthe inclusion of renewable power sources within their respectiveenergy mixes, with corresponding support policies," said GeroFarruggio, Rystad's head of renewables.
Rystad said one big change in the renewable industry was theemergence of oil and gas majors as investors.
"By 2020, it is feasible that the majors will be thedominant renewable developers in Australia," Farruggio said,adding they were building "building sizeable utility storage,solar and ... offshore wind portfolios" there.
He said Malaysia's state-owned petroleum company Petronasand Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell had also"recently made moves in the Indian ... renewables space".(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Joseph Radford)
