EIB

The European Union agency responsible for providing finance to small and medium-sized businesses will have 64% more funds to disperse after the EIB, European Commission and its other shareholders voted to raise its share capitalization.

The European Investment Bank will lend more than half the cost of expanding the first solar project built by the West African nation’s electric utility, from 37 MW to 50 MW.

Policy support for battery energy storage is gaining momentum across Europe as national governments remove regulatory barriers and the EU pledges financial support for this emerging technology. In several countries, revised capacity markets now allow energy storage operators to compete for subsidy contracts on a more equal footing with power generators. Support from the European Battery Alliance and €1 billion in loans from the European Investment Bank in 2020 alone should help shore up investor confidence. Battery storage will be a key component to support the growth of solar PV – but the rollout of projects will have to accelerate faster to fulfill this potential.

RES4Africa’s plan to offer a one-stop-shop to tap consolidate all the European sources of funding for African renewables aims to de-risk investments in large-scale renewable energy projects in the continent. The 171-page report entitled “Scaling Up Africa’s renewable power” provides an update on the “renewAfrica Initiative” launched by the RES4Africa foundation together with a range of European stakeholders one year ago.

The European Commission has outlined a long-anticipated plan it says could unlock up to €340 billion for new solar and wind projects over the next decade. The 30-year strategy envisages up to €470 billion being spent on electrolyzer capacity.

Funded by the bloc’s Emissions Trading System, the warchest will look to spend more than €10 billion on bringing clean energy innovations to market over the next decade. The scheme will work with other green recovery programs to secure jobs and lay a foundation on which to restart the European economy.

The funds will be used by Polish developer Energy Solar Projekty sp.z o.o. to build 66 PV projects selected in Poland’s auction scheme for renewable energy projects not exceeding 1 MW in size.

The economic fallout of the Covid-19 outbreak is yet to be determined but as legislators scramble to establish fiscal support for the EU it is becoming clear the suits in Brussels are not prepared to scrap their hard-won Green Deal plan. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The country’s power utility has completed the pre-selection process to seek developers for a 20 MW solar project in the Banjul region. The project will feature up to four PV plants and will be developed under the national Electricity Restoration and Modernization Project.

Lobby group CEO Walburga Hemetsberger says the plans announced by commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week should place the European solar industry front and center.