Findings from Cleantech Group LLC and Deloitte put 2009 venture capital investment in the clean tech industry at $5.6 billion. Spread across more than 550 deals throughout North America, Europe, China and India, this preliminary total is “expected to increase by 5-10% once investors fully announce their activity (as in previous years), which would make 2009 a record year for number of cleantech VC deals, and approximately equal with 2007 for total amount invested.” Considering the bleak financial outlook of the past year overall, and the lack of binding resolutions at the Copenhagen climate talks, this represents a coup for clean tech. This is still a third less than 2008′s record-breaking investment levels of nearly $8.5 billion, so there are no street parties being planned to celebrate the news (not that we know of, anyhow).

Still, solar energy comes out strong in this picture: with 21 percent of total VC funding, solar investment narrowly beat out transportation (at 20 percent) and energy efficiency (18 percent). More excitingly, four of the five top funding rounds went to domestic companies, Solyndra foremost among them with its innovative cylindrical solar module design. With the economy recovering and new growth pushing forward in the solar industry all the time, let’s hope 2010 breaks some records of its own.