Wow! This sector is on fire. The Cleantech Venture Network released its fourth-quarter and year-end figures on VC investment in the cleantech space and the numbers are encouraging, to say the least.

VC investments in cleantech totalled $502 million (U.S.) in the fourth quarter, representing 9.9 per cent of all VC activity during that period (compared to just 5.5 per cent a year earlier). That’s up about 18 per cent over the third quarter and represents a jump of 60 per cent compared to the same period a year ago. Deals were also 11.5 per cent larger on average.

For the year, investments surpassed $1.6 billion, a 35 per cent improvement over 2005, putting the cleantech space ahead of investments in semiconductor plays.

“We are very pleased to see that this is the 6th consecutive quarter of increasing venture investment in the cleantech sector, moving it to the fifth largest VC investment sector behind biotechnology, software, medical, and telecommunications,” said Nicholas Parker, chairman of the Cleantech Capital Group LLC, an umbrella group that includes the venture network.

More details on where specifically those VC investments went will be released at the Cleantech Venture Forum IX in San Francisco on March 21. I’m personally curious to see whether these fourth-quarter cleantech investments surpassed investments in overhyped Web 2.0 companies.

On a somewhat related note, Clean Edge came out with its own annual data on the cleantech market — actually, mostly focused on the clean energy market. I started listening in on the conference call Monday but, alas, I got pulled away to cover another story. The good news is that Rob Day over at Cleantech Investing has a great summary of what was discussed and of the findings in Clean Edge’s annual report.

Among the highlights:

* The global wind and solar markets grew by 47 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively.

* The biofuels market jumped 15 per cent to become a $15.7 billion market globally.

* The $1.2 billion fuel-cell market has been less impressive, but is expected to jump 12-fold over the next 10 years.

* Overall, the market will growth to $167 billion in 2015 from $40 billion in 2005, representing a four-fold increase and a 15 per cent annual growth rate.

Rob has other details at his site, including a breakdown of clean energy investments in 2005, which you can compare yourself with the Cleantech Venture Network report. Red Herring has another take here.

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