Josué TANAKA
Managing Director, Operational Strategy and Planning, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change
The EBRD region (covering thirty-eight countries from Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, Western Balkans, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia) includes countries that are amongst the most energy, carbon intensive and water scarce economies in the world.
While after 1990 these countries began their transition to market economies at a significant disadvantage (owing to a legacy of widespread environmental neglect and wasteful energy use), many have managed to start decoupling their economic growth from greenhouse gases emissions and have adopted energy and climate action targets.
BEBRD has developed a broad range of energy and climate business products
In this context, the Bank has been a major financier of climate change mitigation and adaptation in its countries of operations and has developed a broad range of innovative products and financing instruments to reach a variety of clients and sectors. Over the last decade, EBRD has invested almost €19 billion in energy efficiency projects, with more than half in the private sector.
EBRD energy and climate business products include Green Economy Financing Facilities which combine technical support and credit lines to local financial institutions for on-lending to energy efficiency projects in commercial enterprises (SMEs and mid-caps) and buildings (commercial, residential and public);
technology transfer platforms such as FINTECC which complement direct financing of private sector companies with grant co-financing that enables them to include eligible advanced technologies in their investment plans; Green Cities Programme, that provides a systematic approach to promoting low-carbon cities via a holistic assessment of gaps, opportunities and priorities for upgrading a city’s infrastructure and Renewable Energy Market Accelerators that bring together project development, policy dialogue aimed at improving the regulatory environment and concessional co-financing to support a mass of early-moving developers.
For all above activities, continued policy dialogue and technical assistance are crucial to enable countries implement legal and regulatory reforms and increase their capacity to deliver against energy and climate targets emerging from the transposition of the EU acquis, the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
Accelerating market penetrations of advanced climate technologies through the technology transfer platforms
For example, under FINTECC, EBRD provided support to a family-owned Moroccan SME producing confectionary products for local and export markets for the construction and operation of a new production site near Casablanca. The total investment value of €15 million includes a
1.4 MW roof-mounted PV system (which is the largest of its kind in Morocco), an ice-based energy storage system to balance daily energy use and supply between cooling and cold storage needs and an energy management system.
Creating sustainable energy markets in partnership with donors and local financial institutions
Under its Green Economy Financing Facilities, the EBRD currently invests
€275 million in Morocco and Egypt through six local participating financial institutions that on-lend to small scale sustainable energy and resource efficiency projects. The investment portfolio supported by these facilities is expected to generate energy savings in the range of 550,000 MWh /year.
By Josué TANAKA, Managing Director, Operational Strategy and Planning, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change
Scaling up green finance
Objectives such as pursuing transition to a low carbon economy, promoting sustainable growth and increasing energy security are important for all countries of operations but each country is at a different stage in its transition. Equally, markets for energy efficient technologies are at different development stages across the EBRD region.
To support its regions of operations reach the goals of the Paris Agreement the EBRD has put green economy transition investments at the heart of its mandate and has set itself an ambitious target: increasing the share of green investments in its total business volume from 25 per cent over the last decade to 40 per cent by 2020.
Scaling up is driven by expanding and diversifying instruments with strong EBRD implementation track-record as well as rolling out innovative emerging business models such as, innovation support schemes to enhance local R&D capacities and enable the rollout of innovative technologies at an early commercial stage.
