EBRD backs green bond issued by Polish utility

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The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has pumped PLN240 million (€52.4 million) into a PLN1 billion green bond issued by Polish power company Tauron Polska Energia to finance its decarbonization plans.

The London-based development lender said the bond, which will cost the utility more to finance if certain green targets are missed, will help the power company install “up to” 300 MW of solar generation capacity and 720 MW of onshore wind projects by 2025. pv magazine reported in August last year that Tauron was aiming for 900 MW of wind capacity by that date.

Tauron, which pv magazine reported in August 2019 had a 5.1 GW, mostly coal-fired generation fleet, is aiming to generate more than 65% of its electricity from unspecified “zero and low-emission sources” by 2030, according to the EBRD, and also wants to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by that point. Should either target be missed, the terms of the PLN1 billion bond issued on the Warsaw Stock Exchange would tighten for the power company.

The utility plans to spend some of the proceeds of the bond on improving its distribution grid to accommodate more renewable energy and the EBRD said the power company would attempt to mitigate the social impact of closing down its coal-fired plants in the Polish mining region of Silesia.

Poland's conventional power companies are operating under the threat of being merged into one entity by the government before being split into renewables and fossil fuel units, as reported in last month's issue of pv magazine.

The EBRD claims to have financed more than 1.5 GW of renewable energy generation capacity in Poland.

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