* Costs of green power to fall rapidly, market share to rise
    * Broader geographic base to diversify risks, rewards
    * Investors looking for climate-neutral, socially just
products

    By Vera Eckert	
    FRANKFURT, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Oil and gas firms, big
industrial players and pension funds will increase investment in
renewable energy thanks to falling costs and a shorter payback
time than for nuclear, Swiss private bank Sarasin said on
Monday.	
    "The sector will become the target of progressive oil and
gas companies and utilities and of blue chip firms in
conventional industries," the bank's sustainability research
analyst, Matthias Fawer, said at a press briefing in Frankfurt.	
   "Insurers such as Allianz and Munich Re (MUVGn.DE)
are also looking to new investment possibilities like wind parks
and solar plants in order to boost their profits," he added.	
    Renewable energies over the last 10 years were the fastest
growing energy industry segments, the bank's research showed.	
    Investment worldwide in the sector rose 25 percent
year-on-year in 2010 alone to $200 billion, it said.	
    Sarasin administers renewable funds worth 1 billion euros
for private and institutional investors out of 100 billion euros
($138.7 billion) in total assets it manages in funds.	
    Investors are tapping into production cost savings as unit
costs of wind and solar installations fall rapidly, while
nuclear power plants become more costly due to safety
requirements, Fawer said.	
    Overcapacity in solar module and wind turbine production
facilities is likely to result in a shake-out, however. This
would bring a better supply-demand balance, enabling the fittest
firms to become leaders in innovation and niche development.	
    Fawer said that pension funds were looking increasingly
favourably on putting their money into energy technology that is
free of carbon dioxide emissions to help protect the climate and
in decentralised energy to quickly empower emerging market
countries.	
    Banks, which tend to have a more cautious lending philosophy
after the financial crisis, are more willing to lend to wind
power projects with a 12 to 18 month realisation timespan, for
example, compared with nuclear plants, which need 10 to 15
years, he said.	
    Fawer cited recent examples of traditional energy companies
and big industry moving into renewables such as Norwegian oil
and gas firm Statoil , which has defined developing
offshore wind as core expertise.	
    SWM, the Munich city utility, has declared it will cover all
its power needs by 2025 from its own wind and solar generation
plants.	
    German industrial bigwigs Siemens (SIEGn.DE) and Bosch
 this year have also announced investments in solar
power and smart energy grids activities
  .	
    Fawer offered a table of latest installed capacities of
renewables (in gigawatts) worldwide as follows* --	
                            2009     2010     Oct 2011 (est.)	
Wind                         159      195          230	
Small hydroelectricity**      60       63           66	
Biomass                       54       56           58	
Photovoltaic                  21       37           50	
Geothermal                    11       12           13	
Solarthermal power-heat        0.9      1.9          2.7	
Wave/tidal power               0.3      0.7          1.0	
TOTAL                        305      366          420	
    *  based on U.N. figures for the past and Sarasin estimates
for the present	
    ** excludes big hydropower dam projects which have caused
environmental and social concerns  
($1 = 0.721 Euros)	
	
 (editing by Jane Baird)