FTTH would allow the potential of smart meters to be realised.

Can’t you ever stop and read and maybe learn?

There is a huge load on the ’net these days: Netflix, IoT, M2M and general stuff. So you need a network topology that can cope. That is FTTH.

Nah, the smart meters which are probably smarter than you.

FTTH, which will inevitably have to be rolled out, will allow better management of electricity use, helping to decarbonise the grid.

FTTH, which will inevitably have to be rolled out,

will allow better management of electricity use, helping to decarbonise the grid.

The world added record levels of renewable energy capacity in 2016 while spending less on clean energy development, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Program and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Global renewable energy capacity, not including large-scale hydropower, increased by 9 percent in 2016 as spending on clean energy sources such as wind and solar decreased by 23 percent from the year before, according to the report published on Thursday.

"Ever-cheaper clean tech provides a real opportunity for investors to get more for less," Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN program said in a statement. "This is exactly the kind of situation, where the needs of profit and people meet, that will drive the shift to a better world for all."

New capacity from renewable energy sources made up 55 percent of all new power sources worldwide as the investment in renewable energy capacity was roughly double that of new fossil fuel power generation capacity. (However, because renewable plants typically run more intermittently, the comparisons are not exact.)

"It's a whole new world," said Michael Liebreich, Bloomberg New Energy Finance advisory board chairman. "Instead of having to subsidize renewables, now authorities may have to subsidize natural gas plants to help them provide grid reliability."

Utility-scale solar power, while still accounting for just a fraction of power in the U.S., has grown exponentially in the past seven years, according to an analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

While the first utility-scale solar farms were installed in the 1980s, more than half of the country’s solar current capacity came online in the past two years.