Renewable Energy

The project is facilitating the increased use of biomass as an energy source in Slovenia, in order to achieve national GHG mitigation targets, by:

• Removing technical, institutional, information and financial barriers to increased use of biomass as an energy source;
• Reducing the costs of biomass based heating projects in local communities implementing at least three demonstration district heating projects;
• Enabling equity financing through the biomass energy revolving fund;
• Training of local professionals in planning, designing, installing, operating and servicing relevant installations;
• Establishing long-term financing mechanisms to enable investments in biomass technology, and;
• Preparing a cross-sectorial national biomass program.

A four-year $7.6 million effort was launched in April 2003 to help accelerate the market for financing solar home systems in southern India. The project is a partnership between UNEP Energy Branch, UNEP Risoe Centre (URC), and two of India's major banking groups - Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank. The effort assisted Canara bank and Syndicate bank in developing lending portfolios specifically targeted at financing solar home systems (SHS).

With the support of the UN Foundation and Shell Foundation, the market catalyst model chosen was a finance subsidy (an interest rate buy-down) provided through the two banks and multiple established vendors. The customer therefore chose to purchase a SHS from one of a number of qualified vendors, and to finance the system from a branch of either Syndicate or Canara bank.

Olkaria III is a geothermal power station in Kenya. DEG arranged the complete debt financing required for the extension of the power station to the amount of 105 million US-dollars, which several financing institutions contributed funds to. Together with KfW Entwicklungbank, DEG provided the owner and operator, Orpower 4 Inc., with a long-term loan of 40 million US-dollars. Thanks to the financing arranged by DEG, the capacity of Olkaria III could be increased from 13 to 48 megawatts so that three and a half times the amount of electricity can be generated.

China’s Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. is one of the world’s leading solar energy companies, as measured by volume of crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) modules produced. The company designs, develops, manufactures, and markets premium-quality, high-output, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solar products for electric power applications in the residential, commercial, industrial, and public utility sectors. Suntech has grown quickly over the last five years: from $85 million in revenue in 2004 to $1.9 billion in revenue in 2008. It is an acknowledged technology leader and industry cost leader. Still, the financial crisis hit the entire solar industry hard: in an industry characterized by large, up-front capital expenditures and heavy working capital needs, the lack of global liquidity has meant that many firms had to put expansion plans on hold.

With IFC’s help, Suntech has been able to move forward, with aggressive plans to launch a new line of highly efficient solar modules, making use of its leading edge, proprietary crystalline silicon technology. Dubbed “Pluto,” the technology increases average cell efficiency by 12.5 percent and reduces production costs. Ultimately, this will help make solar energy a more cost-competitive power alternative— part of IFC’s overall strategy to help solar industry players achieve “grid parity,” the point at which the cost of electricity from solar PV will be on par with conventional sources of power without subsidies

The Clean Technology Fund (CTF) Investment Plan is a “business plan” agreed among the Government of Turkey, the World Bank (WB), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in order to provide support for the low carbon objectives in Turkey’s 9^th Development Plan (2007-13); the 1st National Communication on Climate Change (NCCC), and related strategies, legislation and programs. This multi-year business plan identifies Turkey’s programs that are proposed to be co-financed by the CTF jointly with the WB, IFC and EBRD.