green bonds

The central bank of Bangladesh issued a new policy on green bond financing this week for banks and financial institutions that provide low-cost, long-term loans for renewable energy.

The nation’s central bank this week said the special funds built up by domestic lenders to maintain stock market liquidity could be used to purchase sharia-compliant ‘sukuk’ green bonds which made their debut last month.

Indian developer Acme Solar’s green bonds were oversubscribed by over three times, and will support it financing twelve projects for a combined 450MW (or 605 MWp) of its operational assets in India.

Energy efficiency, electrification of heating and transport, and the provision of clean cooking facilities are all going in the wrong direction as the Covid crisis deprived millions in sub-Saharan Africa of electricity use, according to a report by the IEA, IRENA, WHO, World Bank and UN Statistics Division.

The private-sector arm of the World Bank says it will lend up to $150 million to Johannesburg-based Absa Bank for green project funding.

Falling module prices will help PV post another record year after an estimated 132 GW was installed worldwide in 2020, according to an energy transition investment trends report published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Global management consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has issued a general economic prediction for 2021. Aside from some general notes on GDP recovery post-Covid, the analysts’ notes were heavily focussed on climate and energy finance and policy.

Despite much of the world being on lockdown for a big chunk of 2020, there are few who could say it has been an uneventful year. And while the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic will be what defines 2020 for many, in the solar industry there’s plenty more to shout about, from the rapid rollout of high-powered modules to a drastic increase in carbon-neutral pledges from companies and governments around the world. Across five installments, pv magazine takes a look back at the year in solar. First up were the U.S. election and carbon neutral pledges. Today, we’re talking about auctions and green bonds.

The second edition of the clean energy investment report produced by IRENA says the industry needs to unlock the $87 trillion being sat on by the world’s biggest investment houses – ‘greening’ the $100 trillion global bond market would help too.

The Japanese gas provider wants to acquire a 63.2 MW solar plant in Japan and a 631 MW PV facility in the United States. It has issued a JPY 10 billion ($95.9 million) green bond to finance these transactions and support its other operations.