Renewables just finished another record-breaking year, with more money invested ($471 billion) and more capacity added (121 gigawatts) than ever before, according to new data released Thursday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Oil, coal and natural gas bottomed out over the last 18 months, with bargain prices not seen in a decade. That's just one of a handful of reasons 2015 should have been a rough year for clean energy. But the opposite was true.

Fossil-fuel prices take a tumble

Another reason investment in clean power could have declined: Europe. Once the world leader in new-energy spending, Europe's investments have fallen off amid economic stagnation. Last year, Europe had its smallest investment in renewables since 2006.

Europe has been supplanted by China as the new global giant pushing renewables forward. China spent a record $US111 billion ($159 billion) on deployment of clean energy infrastructure last year. That's 17 per cent more than it spent the prior year, and almost as much as the US. and Europe combined. Spending in the US rose 7.5 per cent in 2015 to $US56 billion, the most since federal stimulus spending peaked in 2011. 

China: Champion of renewables

Perhaps the biggest surprise last year came from smaller countries that often don't register on charts like the one above. For the first time, more than half of the world's annual investment in clean energy came from emerging markets.

Even more telling is that the world has reached a turning point, and is now adding more power capacity from renewables every year than from coal, natural gas, and oil combined. That trend continued in 2015 despite crashing fossil fuel prices.

And since clean energy is also getting cheaper, the world got more bang for each buck. Investment dollars rose 4 per cent last year, while the new capacity added for wind and solar jumped 30 per cent.

The rise of clean-energy investment 

Bloomberg